03.03.2025 
The smartphone experience on the Realme 14 Pro
When using the Realme 14 Pro, I appreciated the curves along its frame, which make it feel slimmer than it really is. Its thinner profile compared to similarly sized devices is a positive aspect, allowing for more comfortable handling, which is important when purchasing a smartphone of this size. Another feature I immediately liked is that the Suede Gray color option I’m testing has a vegan leather back, which feels smooth to the touch.
The back of the Realme 14 Pro feels smooth
Although the display lacks official HDR video certification, it provides a satisfying visual experience. It remains bright and clear, even in outdoor settings, and can stream HDR content from YouTube. However, without official HDR support, accessing HDR movies on Netflix and other streaming platforms may not be possible. Nevertheless, video content, as well as mobile games, look good on the Realme 14 Pro.
The display is bright and colorful
Remember that this smartphone isn’t designed for high-performance gaming, so you won’t be able to play demanding games with high-quality graphical settings. If you’re okay with lowering the visual settings, you can expect decent 30 fps performance. The smartphone's efficient cooling system will keep it from heating up too much. However, because of its size and the positioning of the camera ring, holding the Realme 14 Pro in your hands in landscape orientation isn’t very comfortable.
Gaming works reasonably well
The speaker setup offers a good audio conversation and call experience. However, the sound quality isn't great when listening to music or watching videos. The bass is underwhelming, and background instruments are not as clearly defined as they are on more premium smartphones.
The speakers aren't great for listening to music
Call quality is good, though. I enjoyed good signal strength, and my voice was heard clearly and loudly by the people I spoke to. However, the speaker at the top side of the screen can sometimes get quite loud, and people around you will hear what the person you’re calling is saying.
Voice calls are loud and clear
The fingerprint reader is fast and accurate. While face recognition works well during the day, it isn’t as precise at night, so you may prefer to use the fingerprint reader.
Battery life is a strength of the Realme 14 Pro. This phone has no issues lasting a full day of use, even when used more intensively. For most people, however, this smartphone should last between a day and a half and two days of normal use on a single charge.
Realme says this smartphone's battery can charge from 1% to 50% in 36 minutes. If you have a 45-watt SUPERVOOC charger, the battery should fill up in around 57-60 minutes, according to other websites that have reviewed the Realme 14 Pro. I didn’t have such a charger, so I used a Samsung 45-watt charger instead, which uses a different charging technology. With it, the battery charged fully in 71 minutes, reaching 51% in just 30 minutes.
The charging speed for Realme 14 Pro
The overall user experience provided by the Realme 14 Pro is positive. Users will appreciate that this smartphone is lighter and thinner than its direct competitors, features a good quality OLED display that performs well even when outdoors, offers good battery life, and delivers a satisfying performance. Although its sound system could be improved, most users will likely be okay with it. Next, let’s explore the software included with the Realme 14 Pro and examine its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
The software experience: realme UI 6.0 and bundled apps
The Realme 14 Pro ships with realme UI 6.0, based on Android 15. Therefore, users can benefit from all the latest Android features like detailed widget previews, Theft Detection Lock, or the improved Circle to Search.
Realme 14 Pro comes with realme UI 6.0 and Android 15
Realme has also introduced a Smart sidebar, similar to the one available on Samsung's Galaxy devices. This sidebar is customizable, enabling you to add various apps and shortcuts. It also adapts contextually, loading different tuning options based on the apps you are using. The picture below shows how it looks while browsing YouTube.
The Smart sidebar can be useful
When gaming, the side panel includes useful gaming tools which allow you to monitor and improve gaming performance.
When gaming, you can see the fps in real time and activate other gaming features
The operating system on the Realme 14 Pro works well and feels fast and responsive. However, it tends to be bloated with too many preinstalled apps, and you also encounter unwanted ads occasionally, including on the lock screen.
Realme 14 Pro comes with many preinstalled apps
Software support has improved over previous models, and the company has promised five years of security updates, which is excellent for a device in this price range.
Users will likely appreciate that the Realme 14 Pro has the latest Android version preinstalled, allowing them to enjoy the best features this ecosystem offers. However, realme UI 6.0 tends to come with many preinstalled apps and includes a significant amount of ads, which detract from the overall quality of the user experience.
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools and features
Realme has also jumped on the AI bandwagon and provides several AI-powered features. However, you primarily get access to tools developed by Google and integrated into Android 15. My favorite feature remains Circle to Search, which is useful and now offers more capabilities than in its earlier versions.
Circle to Search works great on the Realme 14 Pro
Another AI-based app available on the Realme 14 Pro is Gemini. However, you don’t have access to Gemini Advanced, not even for a month or two, and you must pay for a plan right from the outset. This is to be expected from a smartphone that is not in the flagship category. You can still use the free Gemini models, which work reasonably well, similar to what you get on any other Android smartphone.
Gemini is also available
Realme also has a few AI-based tools, which aren’t exactly AI. They’re mostly marketing. One good example is AI Smart Loop, which allows you to select content on the screen or take screenshots and then drag them into other apps where you want to use them. This isn’t exactly artificial intelligence; it is only a well-designed algorithm that can make you more productive when using your smartphone.
AI Smart Loop is useful
The Realme 14 Pro benefits from AI-based features that make users more productive. However, I wouldn’t mention this as a focus area for this smartphone. This isn’t necessarily bad, as most smartphone manufacturers tend to overpromise these days when it comes to artificial intelligence. The reality is that AI is mostly marketing and not as good as manufacturers would have you believe. Therefore, I find it refreshing that realme doesn’t make too much of a fuss about their smartphones being powered by AI.
The camera experience on the Realme 14 Pro
The Realme 14 Pro camera setup is built upon a main 50-megapixel wide lens with OIS (Optical Image Stabilization). Unfortunately, this smartphone has no ultrawide and no zoom lens. Even so, it does a good job capturing photos in many different situations. The main camera manages to capture bright and colorful photos, especially in daylight. The detail is good, the colors are vivid, and the photos come out clear and with nice contrast. The results may sometimes look too bright, or a tad too saturated. However, the picture quality is generally good. Even when you zoom in, images are fairly sharp, with little noise.
Pictures look good when taken in good lighting conditions
At night or in similar low light conditions, the Realme 14 Pro captures decent photos. It manages to shoot relatively bright stills and the level of detail is good enough for such conditions. While some unavoidable noise is visible, you can reduce it further by using the dedicated night mode in the Camera app. On the other hand, that may make edges look a bit too soft.
Night shots are okay too
The camera does a decent job of recognizing edges for portraits. However, it can sometimes miss fine details, especially in dim light. The front camera takes clear selfies and brightens your face, though it struggles a bit when taking pictures of people wearing glasses.
The selfie camera is decent
Realme 14 Pro can be submerged up to two meters underwater for up to 48 hours, allowing you to record videos and take pictures with the camera’s Underwater mode. It’s winter here, in Bucharest, so I didn’t have a place to test this feature and see how well it works. You can access this mode in the More section of the Camera app, where you find plenty of other useful modes, like Time-lapse, Dual-view video, a Pro mode for taking pictures, or a Doc Scanner that’s both practical and useful when you need to scan something and transform it into a digital format.
Some of the modes available in the Camera app
If you want to see some pictures I’ve taken with the Realme 14 Pro, click this link to access a gallery containing dozens of samples.
Check out my gallery with pictures taken with the Realme 14 Pro
Regarding video quality, the selfie camera is limited to 1080p at 30 fps and there’s not much to say about it. It’s decent but not amazing. On the other hand, the rear camera can record up to 4K at 30 fps, which is much better, although standard for today’s smartphones. It does a decent job both in daylight and at night, but the camera’s OIS doesn’t seem to be amongst the best out there. Another issue is that the Steady Mode, which provides the best stabilization, is not available when recording videos in 4K resolution. It only works with 1080p videos at 60 fps.
Steady Mode works only in 1080p at 60 fps
Luckily, I prefer capturing videos with a higher 60 fps framerate (even if resolution is limited to 1080p), as they look much smoother. Here’s a sample video I recorded with this smartphone at 1080p and 60 fps, so that you get a better idea of its quality:
Recording videos in 4K produces fairly good results if you stay still (as the lack of OIS becomes apparent when moving) and avoid zooming in and out during the recording. The transitions are not handled well, which significantly affects the image quality. Otherwise, most users will be satisfied with the results, even for night recordings, like the one below, captured in 4K at 30 fps:
While the lack of an ultrawide lens may limit the smartphone’s capacity to capture groups of people or landscapes, the Realme 14 Pro’s primary camera delivers a largely positive experience. Although it’s not a flagship-level camera, it takes quality photos both during the day and at night. When considering video recording, the quality the Realme 14 Pro provides is satisfactory for a smartphone in its price range. It might not impress everyone, but it won’t disappoint them either. If you’re fine with recording videos in 1080p, you’ll likely be satisfied with the results.
Performance in benchmarks
I’ve shared how the Realme 14 Pro looks and what using it is like from a hardware and software perspective. Now, it’s time to run a couple of benchmarks to get a better idea of its performance. The first benchmark I used is Geekbench. The Realme 14 Pro scored 1014 points for Single-Core processing (8% higher than the Realme 12 Pro) and 2867 points for Multi-Core processing (8.5% higher than the Realme 12 Pro).
Realme 14 Pro scores in Geekbench 6
Continuing, I turned to PCMark for Android to benchmark this smartphone’s performance when running productivity apps and browsing the web. The Realme 14 Pro achieved a Work 3.0 performance score of 13929 points, which is more than enough for using your smartphone productively. This result is similar to what you get from one of its direct competitors, the Xiaomi Poco X7 Pro. When evaluating battery life, PCMark measured an endurance of 17 hours and 39 minutes, which is one hour more than you would get from the older Realme 12 Pro and three hours more than what Xiaomi Poco X7 Pro has to offer.
Realme 14 Pro scores in PCMark
I also ran the Geekbench AI benchmark to evaluate the AI processing capabilities of the Realme 14 Pro. In the screenshot below, you can see the scores it received, which aren’t exactly high. As expected from an affordable smartphone, the Realme 14 Pro can run AI-based apps and tools, but it won’t deliver excellent performance like flagship smartphones.
Realme 14 Pro scores in Geekbench AI
While this smartphone is not designed for gaming, its intended audience is likely to play games on it. So I ran the 3DMark benchmark to see how it fares. In the Wild Life test, the Realme 14 Pro scored 3159 points and an average frame rate of 18.92 fps. In the Sling Shot test, it had a score of 6585 points. This shows that while the Realme 14 Pro can be used to play more demanding games, you must lower the visual quality settings to benefit from good performance.
Realme 14 Pro scores in 3DMark
For the last benchmark, I used SpeedTest to determine the speed of internet connectivity over Wi-Fi on the Realme 14 Pro. I ran this test several times and was surprised that the maximum download speed I achieved was only 368 Mbps. This is half the speed I get on other smartphones connected to the same Wi-Fi and half the speed I experienced on the older Realme 12 Pro. What a disappointing result!
Wi-Fi is surprisingly slow on the Realme 14 Pro
The benchmarks I ran confirm my mixed user experience with the Realme 14 Pro. On the positive side, this smartphone features mid-range hardware that provides sufficient performance for productivity, mobile gaming, and AI-based tasks. Its major strength is battery life; however, a surprising weakness is the speed of its Wi-Fi connectivity, which is significantly worse than what I measured on its predecessor, the Realme 12 Pro.
How do you like the Realme 14 Pro?
You've reached the end of this lengthy review. I hope you enjoyed reading it and that you feel I’ve provided enough information to help you decide whether to buy the Realme 14 Pro. Before I wrap up, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this smartphone: Do you consider it a worthwhile upgrade from your previous device? Are you considering purchasing it or leaning towards an earlier model like the Realme 13 Pro or the Realme 12 Pro? Share your comments using the options below and let me know.
