Over the last few years, we've seen a real explosion in true mass market Android phones that match flagship phones spec-for-spec without too many apparent sacrifices. Indeed, for a while now, when someone has come to ask for a phone recommendation, I've suggested they buy a budget to mid-range headset with a good OLED screen, a decent set of cameras and long battery life. At the end of the day, that's what's important to most folks.
With that in mind, I thought it might be pertinent to take a look at two promising phones in this category: the £299/$370 Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 Pro and the £499/$499 Poco F7 Proy. I've put them through their paces in a couple of mini-reviews below to gauge how well they perform and if they're worth your hard-earned cash.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 Pro review: Plastic fantastic?
Buy:
The Redmi Note 14 Pro impresses at first with a pleasant teal finish (called Coral Green) to its plastic rear panel. It's two-tone, too, and extends to both the top and bottom sides of the phone for added flair. It is also available in black or purple, if you'd prefer.
There have also been upgrades against last year's model, such as a move to Gorilla Glass Victus 2, as well as to a proper IP68 water and dust resistance rating that you only got on the Pro+ model in 2024. The move to IP68 has had the unfortunate move to remove the headphone jack, though.
The screen is a lovely and big 6.67-inch OLED with a 2712×1220 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate that provides decently detailed and responsive output. There is also support for Dolby Vision and HDR10+ HDR standards in supported content, while the actual screen curves at the edges to help the Redmi Note 14 Pro feel slimmer than it actually is both in hand and pocket.
This panel can also get even brighter than its predecessor at 3000 nits peak, leading to lovely and punchy HDR performance and good visibility on sunny days when I took this phone out and about in London for work.
The Redmi Note 14 Pro's cameras aren't too much different from the previous year, with a 200MP main snapper with a 1/1.4-inch sensor, alongside a ¼-inch 8MP ultrawide and 2MP macro lens. The selfie camera has seen a bump from 16MP up to 20MP with a wider f/2.2 aperture.
General wide shots are perfectly okay with good detail and more natural colours. However, without the lack of a dedicated telephoto, cropping in and zooming too much leads image quality to fall to pieces. If you stick with the main sensor, you'll be more than happy with the results that the Redmi Note 14 Pro provides for the price.
Internally, the Redmi Note 14 Pro features a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Ultra SoC, which is a boosted version of the same mid-range chip found in cheaper phones such as Nothing's CMF sub-branded Phone 1. In the run of benchmarks I put it through, results weren't too impressive, and the gulf between this being a cheaper phone becomes a little clearer.
| Benchmark | Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 Pro | Sony Xperia 5 V | OnePlus 12R |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geekbench 6 Single Core | 1038 | 2069 | 2019 |
| Geekbench 6 Multi Core | 2948 | 5585 | 5438 |
| 3D Mark Wild Life Extreme | 850 | 3725 | 3694 |
| GFX Aztec Ruins High Tier | 17fps | 59fps | N/A |
| GFX Car Chase | 23fps | 60fps | N/A |
| PC Mark Work V3.0 | 13292 | 12466 | 14075 |
However, benchmarks are only one side of the story. In actual use, the Redmi Note 14 Pro felt zippy and responsive for casual use, including writing up some words in a pinch in Google Docs when I was out and wanted to get my head down, and browsing through social media and Google Discover for news.
Go beyond that kind of casual use and into more power user territory, and you might notice some slowdown and stutter. In trying some heavier games out, such as Wuthering Waves, you do need to turn settings down to get a higher frame rate out of the device. Lighter titles such as Mario Kart Tour are more than playable here, while EAFC Mobile felt responsive on default settings, although it needed some help from the phone's gaming mode to push to higher frame rates.
The Redmi Note 14 Pro comes with a range of gaming features to try and optimise performance for the best experience possible. Swiping from the left when the phone is in landscape mode in a game allows you to check on real-time FPS figures, as well as allowing you to choose whether the phone prioritises visual fidelity or frame rate. You can also do things such as screen record directly from the tab and turn on a do not disturb mode so that you keep your head in the game.
Software here comes in the form of HyperOS, Xiaomi's highly customised version of Android 14, which, like Honor's MagicOS, borrows some cues from Apple's iOS. This is particularly noticeable with its quick settings menu that's accessed by swiping on the right side of the screen and has a very Apple feel in terms of brightness and volume control. It's the same as MagicOS, so I've been quite used to it, but if you're moving from other Android variants, it can take some getting used to.
As a variant of Android, it's perfectly cromulent, coming with some of Google's latest additions, such as Circle to Search and utilising Gemini as an assistant. There are Xiaomi-specific AI gubbins here, which mostly feature in the gallery app when editing images, such as object removal and portrait blurring with an artificial bokeh effect. There are also a few more advanced options, like the ability to remove backgrounds, FOV expansion and AI-powered automatic video editing.
What I dislike about HyperOS is the amount of bloatware that comes pre-installed, such as Xiaomi's own MI app store, as well as OneDrive, the Opera browser, and the Booking.com app. Honor is guilty of this, too, and I wish more brands would opt for a cleaner approach to their Android skins. As for updates, Xiaomi says the Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G is set to get three OS upgrades and four years of security updates.
Battery life here is generally pretty good, with the PCMark Work V3.0 test at half brightness showing the phone's 5110mAh capacity cell to last for just over 13 hours of multi-tasking and general use. It also supports up to 45W fast charging, although you don't get a charger in the box, and this wattage is lower than the 67W of its predecessor, and just over a third of the 120W supported by the higher-end 14 Pro+ model.
For the £299/$370 asking price, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G is a generally competent phone. It isn't going to be flagship quality for that price, but it's more than serviceable in looks and feel, as well as offering reasonable camera performance, good battery life and handy performance for lighter games and multi-tasking. I'm not the biggest fan of HyperOS, but some light housekeeping well keep your phone clean if you're too fussed.
Poco F7 Pro review: A mid-range handset with flagship oomph
Buy:
The second willing volunteer is the Poco F7 Pro, which jumps up the price ladder to verge on more mid-range territory at £499/$499. From the outset though, it feels like you're getting a lot more phone for your money. It's a pleasant blend of a sturdy aluminum frame and a glass back to offer a stylish, silver rectangular slab that's easy to hold. It is available in black or blue if you'd prefer – Poco's signature yellow is notably absent.
There has been a noteworthy upgrade to the F7 Pro's IP rating, with this new model having a full IP68 water and dust rating, which is a large improvement over the F6 Pro's splashproof designation and IP54-grade seal. It also comes with a handy pre-applied screen protector and a case in the box for extra protection, which is a nice touch.
The F7 Pro has a large 6.67-inch AMOLED screen with a high QHD+ resolution and 120Hz refresh rate for a lovely viewing experience that's slick, detailed and sharp. A peak brightness of up to 1800 nits in the screen's high-brightness mode is especially punchy, and it can also reach as high as 3200 nits in HDR content, although this comes at the expense of losing some detail and definition, as is typical.
Where this handset felt more in the midrange as opposed to being a flagship was with the F7 Pro's dual camera setup that features a main 50MP sensor and an 8MP ultrawide. No telephoto lens here. The main snapper here is great for your general photography needs, with images that have plenty of punch and peppiness in light or dark situations. It also maintains a good amount of detail. Using the 2x mode for some portrait-style shots results in natural bokeh around subjects, which I was particularly impressed with.
The lack of a telephoto is pronounced though, as zooming in any further than the 2x zoom causes detail and sharpness to fall off a cliff. In addition, the ultrawide lens isn't up to the same standard as the main snapper; for the most part, images can come out quite grainy and lacking in fine detail.
In typical F-series fashion, the real focus of the F7 Pro is its internal power, and this model packs in a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip. That was, up until quite recently, the most powerful processor you'd find in an Android phone, so to get it in a mid-ranger provides a lot of oomph for the price. It's the same processor found inside the Honor Magic V3 and Magic 6 Pro, for instance.
As such, it's perhaps no surprise to learn that this is an excellent phone for everything from gaming to moderate productivity and multi-tasking loads. The results in the likes of Geekbench 6 are virtually identical to the Magic V3, although the F7 Pro slightly wins out in multi-core performance. In addition, it garnered high frame rates in the pair of GFXBench tests that were comparable to the cover display on the Magic V3, and above the main screen.
| Benchmark | Poco F7 Pro | Honor Magic V3 | Honor Magic 6 Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geekbench 6 Single Core | 2111 | 2214 | 2243 |
| Geekbench 6 Multi Core | 6254 | 5699 | 6813 |
| 3D Mark Wild Life Extreme | 4567 | 4471 | 5191 |
| GFX Aztec Ruins High Tier | 97fps | 46fps | 88fps |
| GFX Car Chase | 118fps | 57fps | 104fps |
| PCMark Work V3.0 | 17147 | 17419 | 15173 |
The F7 Pro proves seriously capable in more intense titles such as COD Mobile or Wuthering Waves in testing, while it also has the same Game Turbo features as the Redmi Note 14 Pro. That means swiping from the left when the phone is in landscape mode in a game allows you to check on real-time FPS figures, although you can't choose whether the phone prioritises visual fidelity or frame rate, oddly. You can also do things such as screen record directly from the tab and turn on a do not disturb mode so that you keep your head in the game.
Poco is technically a sub-brand of Xiaomi, so it makes sense the two phones run the same skin of Android. That means HyperOS is present on the F7 Pro, and it feels very similar to how it does on the Redmi Note 14 Pro. That means some similar cues to iOS, such as the notification menu, and the presence of some bloatware, such as the Opera browser, pre-installed, plus add-riddled system apps that can't be uninstalled. As for updates, Xiaomi says the Poco F7 Pro is set to get four OS upgrades and six years of security updates.
Battery life here is rather excellent, with the PCMark Work V3.0 test at half brightness showing the phone's large 6000mAh capacity cell to last for 20 and a half hours of multi-tasking and general use. It also supports up to 90W fast charging, and you do get a charger and cable in the box, which is very nice.
I'm a little bit more wholehearted in my recommendation of the Poco F7 Pro for its £499/$499 asking price, given its flagship-esque performance, excellent battery life and sleek looks for a more modest price tag. The cameras here are reasonable, while the HyperOS variant of Android isn't as clean as some rivals, though.
So, there you have it – a bit of a look at the world of cheap and mid-range Android phones in 2025, and how well we seem to be getting on. The answer I think is, surprisingly well, albeit still with a couple of quirks in the instance of these two choices.
