realme launched the realme 14 Pro+, the company’s top-end smartphone in the number series, in India today. This has as bigger display with sleeker bezels, new design, upgraded cameras, faster SoC and a bigger 6000mAh battery compared to the realme 13 Pro+. Is this the best smartphone to buy in the Rs. 30,000 range? Let us dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Camera |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- realme 14 Pro+ 12GB + 256GB version in Suede Grey color
- 2-pin 80W SuperVOOC fast charger
- USB Type C Cable
- SIM Ejector tool
- Protective case
- User Guide and Warranty information
Display, Hardware and Design
The realme 14 Pro+ sports a 6.83-inch (2800 x 1272 pixels) 1.5K 42° 3D curved AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate and 4500 PPI, better than the 13 Pro+. The display is bright since it has up to 1500 nits peak brightness. It offers good colour output since it has 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, and the sunlight legibility is good as well. You can select from vivid, Natural and Pro screen colour modes. There are additional Cinematic and Brilliant.
The phone has a 3840Hz high-frequency dimming technology with AI eye protection function. There is also DC Dimming. The phone also has HDR 10 support, which works for YouTube, but it doesn’t work with Netflix.
The phone doesn’t have a notification LED, but this has an always-on-display that shows contextual info and notifications all day or as per schedule. The phone has 1.6mm ultra narrow bezels on all the sides, making it compact to hold. It has X-axis linear vibration motor.
The phone has a tiny punch-hole that houses a 32-megapixel camera. Above the display, there is an earpiece on the top edge that doubles up as a secondary speaker. It has an in-display fingerprint scanner.
Coming to the button placements and ports, the power button is present on the right side along with the volume rockers. There is nothing on the left. The Dual SIM slot, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill are present on the bottom. The secondary microphone is on the top, along with a speaker vent.
The Suede Grey version that we have has a vegan bio-based suede
leather from realme that has a skin-friendly touch.
The phone come with a pearl design in Pearl White, and the cold-sensitive fusion fibers enable a color-changing effect, creating a dreamlike blue texture offset with white and gold at temperatures below 16°C. The phone also comes in India-exclusive Bikaner Purple, drawing inspiration from the iconic colors associated with the architectural heritage of the city. The model we have to 8.29mm thick, and the other version are just 7.99mm thick. Even though the phone packs a 6000mAh battery, it weighs under 200 grams, and the weight distribution is good.
The device is TÜV Rheinland-Certified for rugged smartphone protection, and Military-level shock resistance certification making it resistant to various environmental factors. It comes with an IP66/IP68/IP69 rating, which means it offers the highest level of water and dust resistance.
Camera
- 50MP 1/1.56″ Sony IMX896 sensor, f/1.88 aperture, OIS
- 8MP ultra-wide camera with f/2.2 aperture
- 50MP Sony IMX882 3X periscope telephoto lens, 6X in-sensor zoom, up to 120x zoom, f/2.65 aperture
- 32MP front-facing camera with f/2.45 aperture
The camera UI in the realme UI 6 is familiar. There is Pro mode, Panorama,, Film, Slo-mo, Time-Lapse, Dual-View video, Underwater mode text scanner, starry mode and tilt-shift. The rear camera offers 12.5MP output after pixel binning, and the front camera images are 32MP in size.
Daylight shots came out well, thanks to the new 50MP sensor, and the dynamic range is better with auto HDR. There is AI mode which recognizes different photo scenes and automatically adjusts camera settings to make boost the colours.
Thanks to the dedicated 50MP periscope telephoto portrait camera offering 3X optical zoom and 6X in-sensor zoom that you rarely see in phones in the price range, portrait shots are good. Even though you can zoom up to 120X, the quality of the image might not be the best when you zoom in beyond 20x. Since this uses tri-prism periscope, the focus is far, so this uses main camera for macro shots, which is good.
The portrait mode is good with good edge detection, and the 8MP ultra-wide camera is decent. Low light shots are good with a lot of details and less noise. The night mode is useful, but it takes a few seconds to process, and you can also shoot the moon even though there is no dedicated moon mode. There is also a tripod mode. The 32MP front camera does a good job. The bokeh shots are good, with decent edge detection. The MagicGlow Triple Flash is useful for low-light shots, and you can even adjust the temperature.
Check out the camera samples
It can record videos in up to 4K 30 fps, slow motion 1080p at 120fps from the rear camera, and the front camera can also shoot 4K 30 fps videos. Portrait video mode is limited to 1080p. There is also ultra-steady video shooting, but it is limited to 1080p 60fps. OIS does a good job for the rear camera.
Software, UI and Apps
It runs Android 15 based realme UI 6.0 out of the box. It has Android security patch for November 2024. The phone should get 2 Android updates and 3 years of security updates, similar to other phones. realme UI 6.0 offers improved self-developed technology for smooth performance, and enhanced safety and privacy tools.
There is AI Ultra Clarity 2.0, AI Snap mode, and AI Eraser 2.0, an enhancement to AI features that were present in the realme UI 5.0.
Apart from the usual set of realme apps and Google apps, it comes with several preloaded apps such as Facebook, Amazon, Snapchat, and more. These apps can be uninstalled, but come back once the phone is reset. There are also Hot Apps and Hot Games.
Out of 12GB LPDD4X RAM, you get 11.13GB of usable RAM, and about 7GB of RAM is free when default apps are running in the background. It also has DRE or dynamic RAM expansion feature, which uses the built-in storage as RAM. This has up to 14GB of additional RAM expansion. Out of 256GB UFS 3.1, you get about 218GB of free storage.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
It has an in-display fingerprint sensor that unlocks the phone quickly, but it is not as fast as a physical fingerprint sensor. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. You can also use the fingerprint for app local and payments in apps. Furthermore, you can change the fingerprint animation and also disable it, and also enable quick launch option to launch apps directly from the lock screen by holding the fingerprint. The phone also has face unlock feature.
Music and Multimedia
YouTube Music is the default Music Player. It has customizable Smart, Movie, Game and Music modes, but doesn’t have Dolby Atmos. It doesn’t have FM Radio support. Audio through the stereo speakers is good without any distortion even in full volume. Audio through earphones is good as well.
This has Widevine L1, so that you can play HD content on Netflix and other streaming apps. HDR works for YouTube, but it doesn’t work on Netflix.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
The realme 14 Pro+ has support for SA:n1/n3/n5/n8/n28B/n40/n41/n77/n78; NSA:n1/n3/n40/n41/n78 Network Bands in India. It has 4G Wi-Fi and VoLTE, with support for Carrier Aggregation on 4G. Other connectivity options include Wi-Fi 6 802.11 ax (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.2, GPS / GLONASS / Beidou. It has OTG support, doesn’t have NFC support. Moving on, the call quality is good, and we did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume was loud.
The realme 14 Pro+’s body SAR is 1.19W/Kg and head SAR is at 1.19/Kg, which is almost similar to 13 Pro+ and it is well under the limit of 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g) in India.
Performance and Benchmarks
The phone is powered by Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 4nmMobile Platform, an upgrade compared to 7s Gen 2 used in the 12 Pro+ and 13 Pro+ models. This has Octa-Core Qualcomm Kryo CPUs that has 1 x Kryo Prime CPUs (Cortex A720-based) at up to 2.5GHz, 3 x Kryo Performance CPUs (Cortex A720-based) at up to 2.4GHz, 4x Kryo Efficiency CPUs (Cortex A520-based) at up to 1.8GHz.
There is Adreno 810 GPU that decent gaming performance. The phone has 13,329mm² graphite sheet and 6000mm² VC Cooling System, which is 33% larger than the predecessor to help keep the phone cool. We did not face any issues or frame drops in the graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact. In BGMI HDR Extreme works, and the company said that 90fps option will be enabled soon in update.
In 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 97.8% which is good. The temperature increased from 31 to 38 degrees, which is not much, thanks to the cooling solution. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
This shows a good improvement in performance compared to the realme 13 Pro+ powered by the 7s Gen 2, and is on par with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, but some phones in the price range offers the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 SoC.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 6000mAh (typical) built-in battery, compared to 5200 in the 13 Pro+. It lasts for a whole day with Wi-Fi, but with 4G or 5G and dual SIMs. I got close to 6 hours of screen on time with close to 2 days of use on Wi-Fi and in 120Hz.
This has 80W SuperVOOC Charge, same as the predecessor. It can charge up to 50% in about 24 minutes and up to 100% in less than an hour with the bundled 80W charger, which is good. There is smart charging and an option to stop charging at 80% to improve the battery health. However, this doesn’t show the battery health.
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs. 29,999 for the 8GB + 128GB, the realme 14 Pro+ offers upgrade in almost all the areas compared to the predecessor, and the main highlight is the display and the design with a vegan leather finish. Even though the battery has increased, there is not much change in the weight. It still has bloatware, and lacks NFC support, and there is no change in the software upgrade cycle to match the competitors.
Alternatives
There is no competition in the range with a periscope telephoto camera, but there is Redmi Note 14 Pro+ that has the same chip. For performance, there is OnePlus Nord 4 that has become cheaper.
Pricing and availability
The realme 14 Pro+ is priced at Rs. 29,999 for the 8GB + 128GB model, the 8GB + 256GB costs Rs. 31,999 and the 12GB + 256GB model is priced at Rs. 34,999.
The phone will be available from realme.com, Flipkart and offline stores starting from January 23rd.
Pros
- Curved display is brilliant
- Smooth performance
- Good cameras
- Good build quality, IP69 ratings
- Good battery life with fast charging
Cons
- Bloatware
- No NFC support