Xiaomi Civi 14 review: A compelling package

Xiaomi Civi 14

It is a curious segment and one that is rather important for a lot of brands. We are talking about the Rs 30,000-Rs 50,000 smartphone segment, which has turned into a closely-contested battleground where features and affordability — in relative terms — both matter a lot. From a buyers’ perspective, it is that sweet spot of finding the right balance between the two.

Most buyers in this segment typically want a phone that scores well in three areas: powerful performance, a long-lasting battery, and a capable camera. They expect a phone that can handle most tasks without breaking the bank. OnePlus has done well on this front with its ‘R’ series. The OnePlus 11R was a really phone and the OnePlus 12R carries that legacy in some style. They might be willing to make some concessions, like having the absolute latest processor or the most luxurious materials.

Call it a perception problem perhaps but Xiaomi has kind of struggled to hit the same heights in this segment. While in the budget segment, Xiaomi reigns quite well with absolute value-for-money offerings.

The Xiaomi Civi 14 is a phone that can break that perception with aplomb as it offers good cameras, battery life and performance for a price that could make you more likely to choose it over competition or a less capable budget phone. We tested the Civi 14 for a while and here’s our review of Xiaomi’s new kid on the block.

Xiaomi Civi 14 review: Design and display

The Civi 14 immediately grabs attention with its sleek and lightweight design. It’s a welcome change for rather biggish phone as it weighs around 179 grams and is 7.4mm thin. The Civi 14 is comfortable to hold for extended periods and is much lighter compared to competitors like the OnePlus 12R (207 grams).

Xiaomi offers a couple of eye-catching colour options, with the Matcha Green variant being a particular standout. There’s a vegan leather back on the green colour variant whereas the Cruise Blue has a dual-tone textured glass. Our review variant — Shadow Black — comes with a matte-finish back glass.

The lightweight design might give off vibes that the phone lacks lacks the feeling of solidity found in some other flagships. However, that’s not the case here. The aluminium frame feels solid and the glass panels give it a nice in-hand feel.

All the buttons can be seen on the right side of the phone and offer ease of use. On the bottom, there’s the type-C charging port whereas the IR sensor is at the top of the device.

The Civi 14 features a 6.55-inch AMOLED display with a full HD+ resolution. Colours are vibrant, and viewing angles are spot on. The phone boasts an impressive peak brightness of 3000 nits, though this level is typically achieved only for brief moments or across small display areas. Nevertheless, the screen delivers clear visibility outdoors, remaining clear and readable even in bright sunlight. The display delivers a smooth 120Hz refresh rate for a fluid user experience, especially when scrolling through menus or playing games that support it.

There are a few colour calibration options, which are found in Xiaomi's premium models. Users can select from Original colour PRO (aiming for accurate colour reproduction), Vivid, Saturated, or Advanced modes. The latter provides granular control over colour space, red, green, blue balance, hue, saturation, vibrance, contrast, and gamma. While the Original colour PRO mode delivers generally accurate colours, it leans towards a cooler white balance. You can switch to the Warm colour temperature preset to effectively fix this issue — if it is one to begin with.

The Xiaomi 14 Civi supports HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision, with the latter fully optimised for Netflix. The display delivers impressive HDR and Dolby Vision performance, boasting vibrant colors and high peak brightness.

However, the screen's wide pill-shaped cutout housing the dual front cameras can be visually distracting, especially during video playback and gaming sessions. It’s not as big — yet slightly reminiscent — as the Dynamic Island on the iPhone 15 series. The in-display fingerprint sensor, though responsive, is positioned lower on the display than ideal for optimal accessibility.

Xiaomi Civi 14 review: Performance, software

The Xiaomi 14 Civi runs on HyperOS, Xiaomi's latest Android 14-based skin, promising three years of major Android updates and four years of security patches. A successor to MIUI, HyperOS is more of a refined iteration rather than a radical departure from its predecessor. While it brings quite a few internal enhancements, the external appearance strongly resembles MIUI, offering both familiarity for existing users and a sense of déjà vu for those seeking a fresh experience.HyperOS maintains a heavy iOS-inspired design language but that’s not a bad thing in our book.

The good part is that the Xiaomi 14 Civi comes pre-loaded with a limited number of third-party apps, all of which can be removed. The remaining apps are primarily from Xiaomi and Google, many of which can also be uninstalled. However, some apps can only be hidden or disabled.

The bad part, however is Xiaomi's aggressive push for third-party app installations through the GetApps store is persistent. The app frequently suggests downloading numerous unwanted apps, which can be really irksome. Moreover, Xiaomi's own apps are riddled with intrusive ads, requiring manual disabling within each app's settings to remove these advertisements and recommendations. It’s a long-time bugbear for a lot of Xiaomi users and something that the company hasn’t really fixed.

Xiaomi has packed in some really impressive hardware in the Civi 14. It is powered by the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset. The review unit had top-of-the-line specs — 12GB of LPDDR5X memory and 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage.

All these combine to ensure that the Xiaomi 14 Civi delivers smooth and responsive everyday performance, with fluid scrolling and snappy UI interactions. Not for a moment we felt that this isn’t a flagship phone when it comes to day-to-day tasks. Apps open fast and even with a lot of background activity, there were no stutters or lags. Xiaomi has done a fine job on this front.

Gaming performance is solid but not extraordinary as demanding titles may struggle to maintain a consistent 60 frames per second. Locking the frame rate to 30fps or reducing graphics settings can improve stability. We tried our hands at Shadow Fight:4 and Call of Duty Mobile and didn’t face any trouble on the Xiaomi Civi 14. There was very minor heating of the device but that’s par for the course.

The Xiaomi 14 Civi comes equipped with a 4700mAh battery, and supports 67W fast charging. The included charger matches this speed, which is really good. Impressively, the phone can fully recharge in just 44 minutes. On a typical day’s usage, the phone can last an entire day but the next morning you will have to charge it.

Xiaomi Civi 14 review: Camera

Before we get into the camera performance, let’s get the specs out of the way. The Xiaomi 14 Civi features a Leica-branded triple rear camera setup. It includes a 50MP main camera with f/1.63 aperture using an OmniVision Light Hunter 800 sensor, a 50MP 2x optical zoom camera with f/1.98 aperture using a Samsung ISOCELL JN1 sensor, and a 12MP ultra-wide camera with f/2.2 aperture using an OmniVision OV13B sensor. On the front, there's a dual 32MP camera system, comprising a wide camera with f/2.0 aperture and autofocus, as well as an ultra-wide camera with f/2.4 aperture and fixed focus.

The Xiaomi 14 Civi offers an elaborate camera app featuring a variety of shooting modes including a dedicated Movie mode with a fixed 21:9 aspect ratio. There are Leica Vibrant and Authentic modes along with a few Leica colour filters. Users can also add Leica watermarks in-app or through the Gallery.

The Xiaomi 14 Civi's main camera delivers impressive image quality, capturing a lot of details without excessive sharpening. The excessive sharpening was a bit of an issue with some previous generation Xiaomi phones but the Civi 14 doesn’t suffer from them.

The Leica cameras live up to their name. The Leica Vibrant mode produces slightly saturated yet generally accurate colours. Then there’s the Leica Authentic mode, which aims for more natural colours and it more or less delivers on this promise. There were certain images where the tones were a bit saturated.

The phone does a fine job capturing highlights but at times it does tend to suppress shadow detail to achieve a high-contrast look.

The 50MP telephoto lens delivers impressive detail and overall image quality. The 4x zoom mode produces commendable results, although image quality deteriorates significantly beyond 5x magnification. The 12MP ultra-wide camera also performs well, capturing satisfactory images considering its resolution.

The selfie cameras are something which Xiaomi is touting quite a bit. The results? Really good-looking selfies but at times there is a slight over processing but that’s something we see a lot on social media posts, so it might just be liked by a lot of people.

It is a consistent and fun camera setup on the Xiaomi Civi 14. The Leica-branded features add a different element than what we can find on competition. The images are impressive and will please a lot of people. In this price segment, the overall features Xiaomi offers gives it an edge over competition’s cameras.

Xiaomi Civi 14 review: Verdict

The Xiaomi 14 Civi is an impressive phone. The build quality is really good and it is a comfortable phone to use. The display delivers on brightness both indoors and outdoors. The camera performance will also impress a lot of users and allows you to have a lot of fun with different settings and features.

However, the battery life isn’t the best when compared to other phones in this price bracket. There’s no official IP rating and that’s something which might bother a few people.

Still, the Xiaomi 14 Civi presents a compelling value proposition at its starting price of Rs 42,999. It is a strong contender in what is a difficult segment to crack. Xiaomi has given a lot of premium features at this price. The Civi 14 might just give the company a boost in delivering the message of Xiaomi making a really good phone outside of the budget and mid-range segment. The Civi 14 is an all-rounder that delivers on all the front that matter.