Redmi Note 14 Pro+: A Premium Mid-Range Flagship with Enhanced Durability, Water Resistance, and Battery Life

Redmi Note 14 Pro+: A Premium Mid-Range Flagship with Enhanced Durability, Water Resistance, and Battery LifeOn September 26, 2024, Redmi officially launched the Redmi Note 14 series, highlighting enhanced durability, water resistance, and extended battery life. The Redmi Note 14 Pro+, the high-end model in the series, has sparked a wave of quality upgrades in the mid-range smartphone market

Redmi Note 14 Pro+: A Premium Mid-Range Flagship with Enhanced Durability, Water Resistance, and Battery Life

On September 26, 2024, Redmi officially launched the Redmi Note 14 series, highlighting enhanced durability, water resistance, and extended battery life. The Redmi Note 14 Pro+, the high-end model in the series, has sparked a wave of quality upgrades in the mid-range smartphone market. Equipped with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 processor, a massive 6200mAh Xiaomi Gold Sand River battery, and passing rigorous IP66, IP68, and IP69K waterproof tests, it offers users a comprehensive and reliable experience.

I. Design: Exquisite Craftsmanship and Superior Texture

The Redmi Note 14 Pro+'s packaging maintains Redmi's minimalist aesthetic, featuring a white background with the prominent gold "Note 14 Pro+" lettering. Upon opening, the phone immediately catches the eye. Compared to its predecessor, the Redmi Note 13 Pro+, the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ boasts a completely redesigned exterior, adopting a dual-curved screen and curved frame for a comfortable and smooth grip.

The most striking feature on the back is the newly upgraded "Life Sense Curve" centered Deco design, paired with finely etched textures around the blacked-out camera module, significantly enhancing its overall texture. The camera Deco clearly displays the camera specifications: "50MP OIS 1:1.6-2.2/15-60," showcasing its powerful imaging capabilities and confirming the absence of any "filler lenses."

The Starry Sand Blue color option uses a glossy glass material, exhibiting a shimmering texture like rippling water. Two other color options are available: Mirror Porcelain White and Midnight Black. The front features a 6.67-inch 1.5K high-brightness eye-protection display with a peak brightness of 3000 nits a significant upgrade from the 1800 nits of its predecessor. It supports full-link P3 color gamut, full-link HDR, true color display, and 20,000-level automatic brightness adjustment, delivering a clearer and more comfortable visual experience.

This screen also employs Xiaomi's Green Mountain eye-protection solution, featuring 1920Hz high-frequency PWM + DC dimming technology and a rhythm eye-protection function. It has received the "Visual Health Friendliness S++" certification from the China Quality Certification Center, ensuring user eye health.

The left side of the phone remains clean, while the right side houses the volume and power buttons. The top features a microphone, infrared sensor, and speaker openings, while the bottom houses speaker openings, a USB port, microphone, and SIM card slot. The packaging includes a protective case, a 90W fast charger, a data cable, and a SIM ejector pin, providing comprehensive protection for the user.

In summary, with its innovative camera Deco design, smooth body texture, and excellent craftsmanship, the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ demonstrates exceptional value and attractive aesthetics within its price range.

II. Durability: Robust Construction, Enduring Strength

The Redmi Note 14 Pro+ utilizes a new "Diamond" construction, featuring a reinforced Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the front, offering a 200% improvement in drop resistance compared to GG5. The back is protected by the latest Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 7i, boasting a 100% increase in both drop and scratch resistance.

Redmi has also optimized the internal structure of the phone, significantly improving its drop resistance. The phone withstands a drop test from a height of 1.8 meters onto a marble surface the highest in the industry. IT Home's testing results confirm its outstanding drop resistance.

Furthermore, the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ features significantly improved water resistance, meeting IP66 (protection against powerful jets of water), IP68 (protection against continuous submersion), and IP69K (protection against high-temperature, high-pressure water jets) standards, meeting user needs in various scenarios. (Note: Drop and water resistance tests are for demonstration purposes only; users are advised not to imitate these tests.)

During the initial sales period, purchasing the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ includes a five-point "Diamond Guarantee": one-year battery cover warranty, one-year screen breakage warranty, one-year water damage warranty, five-year battery warranty, and 365-day replacement-only service, offering users comprehensive after-sales support.

III. Performance: Powerful Processing, Smooth Operation

The Redmi Note 14 Pro+ features the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 processor, built on TSMC's 4nm process. It utilizes a flagship-level CPU architecture of 4xA720 large cores + 4xA520 small cores, with a maximum large-core frequency of 2.5GHz. Official data shows a 25% improvement in AnTuTu benchmark scores and a 30% improvement in AI performance compared to the Snapdragon 778G.

IT Home used AnTuTu Benchmark V10 to test the Redmi Note 14 Pro+, achieving a total score of 783,395, with a CPU score of 273,551 and a GPU score of 193,240. GeekBench 6 tests showed a single-core score of 1161 and a multi-core score of 3353. Storage performance tests showed sequential read speeds of 1934.3MB/s, sequential write speeds of 1525.0MB/s, random read and write speeds of 228.0MB/s and 177.0MB/s respectively, and AI read speeds of 148.0MB/s.

To test the gaming performance of the Redmi Note 14 Pro+, IT Home used three popular mobile games: Honor of Kings, Genshin Impact, and Against the Water. In Honor of Kings, with high-definition graphics, ultra-high resolution, and ultra-high frame rate settings, the average frame rate reached 119.4fps, demonstrating stable performance with an average power consumption of 3.37W.

In Genshin Impact, with medium graphics settings and a 60fps frame rate in performance mode, a 15-minute Sumeru City test resulted in an average frame rate of 38.6fps and an average power consumption of 4.38W.

In Against the Water, with "Standard" graphics and "Ultra-high" frame rate limits, a 15-minute run through Bianjing City resulted in an average frame rate of 50.7fps, running smoothly in areas with few players, but experiencing frame rate fluctuations in crowded areas. Average power consumption was 3.98W. The phone maintained good temperature control during gaming, without noticeable heating.

In summary, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 processor in the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ meets the daily needs of mid-range users and runs mainstream mobile games smoothly. However, when running games with extremely high performance requirements, it may be necessary to lower the graphics and frame rate settings.

IV. Imaging Experience: Triple Camera, Five Focal Lengths, Powerful Imaging Capabilities

Unlike many competitors in the same price range that use "filler lenses," the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ features a true triple-camera, five-focal-length imaging system with a 1/1.55-inch Light Hunter 800 sensor. This sensor boasts 2m fused large pixels, supports Dual Native ISO Fusion Max technology, and achieves a dynamic range of up to 13.2EV, delivering excellent daytime, nighttime, and indoor shooting results.

The Redmi Note 14 Pro+ also significantly improves the basic image quality algorithms for high dynamic range, night noise reduction, and ultra-clear zoom, with all processing upgraded to the RAW domain to fully leverage the native high dynamic range capabilities of the Light Hunter 800 sensor. It supports zero-delay shutter and 30 high-quality images per second burst shooting.

The ultra-wide-angle lens uses an 8MP Sony IMX355 sensor, providing utilitarian recording attributes. The Redmi Note 14 Pro+ also features a 50MP Samsung JN1 sensor, providing a 2.5x (equivalent to 60mm) telephoto lens with 5x ISZ lossless zoom. Although it lacks OIS optical image stabilization, this telephoto lens in daylight offers higher image purity and clearer details compared to cropping from the main sensor.

In terms of nighttime shooting, as long as there is ambient light, the Redmi Note 14 Pro+'s telephoto lens can generally maintain stability without reverting to the main camera. The 5x ISZ zoom also offers considerable usability, providing a telephoto photography experience rarely seen in similarly priced phones.

The Redmi Note 14 Pro+ supports switching between equivalent focal lengths of 24mm, 28mm, and 35mm, as well as 60mm and 75mm. The only drawback is that electronic image stabilization (EIS) in the viewfinder doesn't activate until 10x zoom or higher