Its been a busy year for Xiaomi, a Chinese consumer tech giant which is pushing hard to become a major player in the Android smartphone market in the west.

　　Despite bringing out some quality phones for photography this year, notably the phenomenal Xiaomi 14 Ultra , the brand is still not well-known in the UK. It barely registers at all in the US owing to political wrangling, narrowly avoiding the same fate as Huawei. Will the new Xiaomi 14T Pro change this?

　　First, a quick reminder of where the Xiaomi 14T Pro sits in the companys line-up. Its essentially a mid-range flagship, meaning it sits below the Xiaomi 14 and 14 Ultra but above the budget Redmi and Poco handsets. So the Xiaomi 14T Pro is cheaper than the 14 and 14 Ultra, but as we will see, it still offers many of the benefits of these higher-end phones.

　　The companys tie-up with Leica has also attracted a lot of attention, and the relationship between the two companies seems to go from strength to strength so much so that they are planning to open an optical institute in Beijing. Leicas certainly not going to allow a shonky outfit to use the esteemed Leica Summilux brand on its phones, so its a vote of confidence in Xiaomi.

　　Buy Now Xiaomi 14T Pro at a glance Triple Leica Summilux-branded camera set-up Main camera, 50MP, 23mm equivalent, f.1.6, OIS Telephoto, 50MP, 60mm equivalent, f/2 Ultra-wide, 12MP, 15mm equivalent, f/2.2 Front (selfie) camera, 32MP, 25mm equivalent, f/2 Light Fusion 900 1/1.31″ sensor 8K video at 30fps LOG capture at up to 4K resolution, with 24 or 30fps options 6.67-in, 446 ppi display Available in metallic blue, gray and black Compared to the Xiaomi 13T Pro, the main change is that the Xiaomi 14T Pros main camera lets in 32% more light thanks to its faster f/1.6 aperture. Other significant changes include hardware and computational photography improvements that make image capture speed 1.5x higher than the Xiaomi 13T, while noise is reduced in low light shooting and dynamic range expanded.

　　This being 2024, the new phone has more AI features too, including the incorporation of the Google Gemini personal assistant, which we will discuss in detail later.

　　Features So to recap, the main changes to the triple Leica Summilux-branded camera set-up on the back, elegantly constrained within a square, include a new sensor and wider aperture lens on the main camera, a longer (2.6 x) zoom and a higher resolution 32MP selfie camera (its only fixed focus however, which has only partially addressed one of the cons of the Xiaomi 13TPro).

　　Other noteworthy new features include a brighter 6.67-inch CrystalRes AMOLED display and support for up to 50w wireless charging.

　　Handling and design The Xiaomi 14T Pro is a couple of millimetres taller and wider than the Xiaomi 14, coming in at 160.4 x 75.1 x 8.4 mm and very slightly heavier at 209g. While the curved glass back with metallic colours is certainly elegant, the handset is sometimes a bit slippery so I would definitely use the (supplied) plastic protective rear case. The slightly bigger 6.67-inch screen is impressive, with the extra peak brightness (400 nits) making a noticeable difference.

　　Key control buttons are placed towards the left side of the right (or top) edge and fall to hand easily, though you have to be careful not to activate them by mistake when attaching a mini tripod. The rear cameras protrude slightly compared to the Xiaomi 14, which I prefer as it makes them easier to clean.

　　So its a stylish and easily pocketable phone but not a head turner an issue that many Android phones face, compared to the still very cool-looking iPhone. The colour schemes are not very exciting, either, with metallic blue being the most eye-catching.

　　Native camera app This is good, but not perfect. Pro is the first option, oddly, and it comes in very handy if you shoot raw. As seen in my previous article, this is very easy on Xiaomi phones. You can only use the Leica Vibrant preset with raw, which is not a problem as it does a good job of boosting saturation without going over the top.

　　There is also a good choice of Leica Filters, available in Pro and standard modes, and I really like Leica BW HC (high contrast) for punchy mono shots. You can really see the difference they make when shooting in 50MP Ultra HD.

　　However, the icon to activate these is easily missed a rather meaningless trio of circles and should be much more obvious. Also, its really easy to accidentally toggle back to JPEG if you touch the RAW icon by mistake (when whipping the phone out of your pocket, for example). This is just poor design, on an otherwise well thought-out phone.

　　Also noteworthy is the revamped Portrait mode interface, which now offers a handy EV button for adjusting exposure, and labels for 23mm to 75mm focal lengths (a mix of native focal lengths and zoom modes). Appearing under More is Director Mode, which adds a more professional looking interface when shooting videos (you can record at 4k @ 60fps, with support for Log format).

　　So the native camera app is generally nice to use, my only other bugbear being the cramped zoom icons when using the main camera its easy to touch them and zoom in or out by mistake when you use onscreen focussing/shooting, and they can be hard to read in bright sunlight.

　　Image quality and performance For the money, image quality is good, and very close to that of the pricier Xiaomi 14. Colour saturation is punchy without being garish and too obviously computational, and you can easily kick up the colours with the Leica Vibrant preset if you wish.

　　For more natural images, the Leica Authentic preset is fine, delivering slightly darker and moodier results.

　　As with the Xiaomi 14, the Xiaomi 14T Pros telephoto camera really excels. The 2.6x zoom magnification is great for capturing distant features or for nicely blurring the background in portraits.

　　Noise is well controlled, too, particular in low-light and there is plenty of dynamic range, with decent contrast. When it comes to the ultra-wide camera, it is fixed focus, which can feel restrictive sometimes but wide landscapes generally come out sharp.

　　I really like using this phone for portraits. As well as handy camera app widgets mentioned earlier, the choice of sensor and lenses means its very easy to achieve shallow depth of field and skin tone and texture is accurately captured in decent light (and again, a wide range of creative effects can be achieved with the generally tasteful Leica presets and filters).

　　In poorer light, or when using the telephoto camera, skin sometimes takes on more of a waxy quality, however.

　　For macro shooting, you are limited by the so-so minimum focusing distance of 45cm with the telephoto camera, so this is worth bearing in mind if you like to do lots of close-ups. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is better equipped for macro, but expected to pay several hundreds pounds more. As for the selfie mode, you now get more resolution but its still nothing special. Xiaomi clearly doesnt regard it as a big priority.

　　There are no complaints about night mode for a phone in this price bracket. As you can see with this Glastonbury shop window, there is very respectable detail and noise is well managed.

　　That said, we did notice a tendency to blow out highlights when you are shooting around a neon sign in a bar, for example, or with this candle in a restaurant.

　　Software Enhanced AI features are a big selling point of the Xiaomi 14T Pro. The Google Gemini personal assistant app is now built-in and this is a wise move on Xiaomis part, as it is surprisingly helpful. I asked Gemini when was the best time to photograph Glastonbury Tor for example, and as a local, I was impressed by the detail of its response. If anything it rambled on a bit too much!

　　Xiaomis native AI editing tools are now available via a rather sizeable 800Mb download and they are OK. The background-distraction removal tool is not particularly intuitive compared to those in Apple and Samsung phones, but works well enough once you get the hang of it.

　　There are some neat features, however, such as the ability to add cool-looking Leica watermarks and turn your stills into simple movies from the photo library, with a choice of basic soundtracks. We can see this being used a lot for social media and is surprisingly addictive.

　　A new AI feature called Circle to Search, which uses AI to bring up information on a item youve circled with your finger, still isnt available yet. Android rival Samsungs AI tools generally feel more polished.

　　HyperOS, Xiaomis Android skin, isnt particularly noteworthy, being relatively unobtrusive and fast to load (the Xiaomi 14 is powered by a nifty Mediatek Dimensity 9300+ chipset).

　　Value for Money Chances are your mates havent heard of Xiaomi, so the bragging rights are minimal, but this shouldnt put you off considering the Xiaomi 14T Pro, as its good value. The phone is currently discounted to £649 if you buy direct from Xiaomi (£699 on Amazon, via an exclusive deal) which means its roughly the same price as the Samsung Galaxy S24.

　　The Samsungs AI editing features are more polished and there is a slightly longer telephoto camera, but you dont get Leica-branded lenses, or those quality Leica filters.

　　With Amazon discounting, the still-excellent Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is coming in cheaper, too. Its the first Samsung to boast a 200 megapixel sensor, so might be a more compelling option if you want as much resolution as possible.

　　Verdict While it is facing some very tough competition and suffers from limited brand recognition (particularly in the US), there is no denying the appeal of the Xiaomi 14T Pro. The tie-up with Leica is proving to be way much more than a marketing exercise, and the phone is well-designed, fast charging and fast generally.

　　Given all this, it is probably a safer bet than its older bigger brother, the Xiaomi 14. While this boasts some higher-end specifications, the differences wont make a massive difference to your day to day photography, and we suspect it will be upgraded at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona next March (the same goes for the top-end Xiaomi 14 Ultra).

　　There are some handling and interface design issues without a case, the Xiaomi 14T Pro is annoyingly easy to drop and its wise to double-check the settings before shooting raw but generally its a fast and reliable mid-range phone that should keep most smartphone photographers happy.

　　Camera performance aside, the bigger, Dolby Vision screen is bright and colourful, battery life is great, and the handset also has IP68 rating, which literally makes it a safer bet than another very attractive rival, the OnePlus 12 you can submerge the Xiaomi in water for up to 30 minutes.

　　So, and pardon the pun, if youre not lured by Samsung or other better-known brands, its definitely worth taking the plunge with the Xiaomi 14T Pro. Wed also pay a bit more and choose it over the Xiaomi 14T, announced at the same time, as the price difference is not huge (though it does come in snazzier colours).