Xiaomi South Africa officially announced that the Xiaomi 14T is now available in South Africa at a launch event held in Joburg last night. Unfortunately, no mention was made of the 14T Pro, so if you were hoping for that, tough luck.
However, the upper mid-range 14T still features a respectable spec sheet, including a MediaTek Dimensity 8300-Ultra SoC and a particular focus on photography with some help from Leica.
Sipping some Xiaomi 14T
Earlier in the month, we speculated on this launch and it turns out that most of what we suspected regarding the phone’s specs came to fruition. There’s a 6.67in AMOLED display up front featuring a ‘1.5K’ (1,220 x 2,712px) resolution, 144Hz refresh rate, and support for HDR content.
Behind that sits the Dimensity 8300-Ultra chipset with access to a sizeable 12GB of system memory and 512GB of quick UFS 4.0 storage. For charging, you’re looking at 67W wired with no support for wireless. That’s still faster than what Samsung or Apple can manage but doesn’t stand out in this market segment as much as it used to.
You can also look forward to a few baked-in Google-powered AI features like Circle to Search, the Gemini assistant, and more.
Read More: Samsung’s budget Galaxy A16 set to drop with six years of OS updates
However, the focus from Xiaomi was on photography, particularly in low-light conditions. And who can blame them? Gotta get the most from that Leica partnership, ey? The Xiaomi 14T sports two 50MP sensors and a third 12MP ultra-wide in its rear camera array. Leica colour science is integrated into the camera app where you can choose from a few presets.
On to the part you’re probably more interested in – the price. For now at least, the device is most readily available through Xiaomi’s main channel partner Vodacom but we’re sure it’ll turn up in Xioami stores and other partnered stores before too long.
From as early as today you can get the Xiaomi 14T for a once-off price of R19,000 marked down to R17,300. There’s no telling if that’s a limited-time launch special or only meant to look like one. Either way, we’re sure the majority of new 14T owners will opt for a contract instead. If you’re going that route you can expect to pay at least R1,000/m for a 24-month contract or R800/m over 36 months.
