I’ve been interested in this phone ever since it got announced. The Vernee Apollo Lite sounded like a breath of fresh air in the largely monotonous Chinese smartphone industry (I’m talking about the ‘export’ brands here).
With it’s Helio X20 and 4GB RAM, the Apollo Lite is right there in the ‘big league’. Heck, we even did an Apollo Lite vs Redmi Pro comparison here on GizChina… and safe to say the Apollo Lite isn’t too far behind.
Anyway, so I took delivery of the Apollo Lite last evening (it came from Gearbest), after a failed visit to the Post Office the day before. And man, was the wait worth it! (It took almost a month to get here from China.)
The phone comes in a very simple, matte-finished box with not too much inside. There’s the Apollo Lite itself (with a screen guard pre-applied, which I got rid of immediately), a charger, USB cable (Type-C), SIM ejector tool and the user’s manual.
SEE ALSO: Vernee Mars Specifications
The Apollo Lite is an absolutely beautiful phone with just the right amount of curves and straight lines. I think it’s safe to say that the Apollo Lite is the best-looking (and perhaps even the best-made, in terms of build quality) phone of this year (of course, again talking about the ‘export brands’ here).
The Apollo Lite reminds you of the OnePlus 3 in more ways than one. It’s a shame that GizChina’s review unit of the OnePlus 3 went back to the company a few weeks back; it would’ve been interesting to compare the phones side by side.
Gizchina News of the week
Anyway, let’s talk about what’s at hand. The version we have here is the black color variant, which I’m pretty sure is the preferred version (the other being silver).
Let’s run through the specs real quick: It has a 5.5-inch 1080p IPS display, a deca-core MediaTek Helio X20 MT6797 SoC, 4GB RAM, 32GB ROM, 16 mega-pixel f/2.0 rear camera, 5 mega-pixel front camera, 3180mAh battery, and network support on the following bands: GSM 850/900/1800MHz; WCDMA 900/2100MHz and FDD-LTE 800/1800/2100/2600MHz.
Vernee Apollo Lite Photo Gallery
While the build quality does seem excellent and definitely worth the asking price, I’m a little apprehensive (just a little) about the rear actually being full metal.
The battery has so far, in one day of usage, been about average with 4 hours plus screen on time, but most of it on WiFi. The built in loudspeaker is a complete let down for an otherwise wonderful package. Speaking of audio, the 3.5mm jack outputs some decent audio and I have no complaints whatsoever about that.
If I remember correctly, Vernee said that the phone would feature digital audio output from the USB Type C port as well — I’ll give that a try once I’m able to recollect where I kept my Type C to 3.5mm port adapter.
More, including camera performance, day to day usage, fingerprint sensor, etc. in the full review next week. Meanwhile let us know in the section below if there’s anything you want to know about the phone — I’ll keep a close eye on the comments.
Thanks to Gearbest for the test sample of the Apollo Lite. At the time of publishing, the phone can be bought for $209.99.
I feel like, once delivered, all of the hype around this device went somehow lost… Users’ reviews aren’t as great as expected before, a good phone with some flaws here and there, but not the game changer someone was waiting for.
Still, waiting for yash’s opinion!
Heard some build quality issues that put me off, let’s see if they fixed it on new batches.
Almost every first batches of every new phone have some kind of built issue, that’s why we should never pre-order… I guess they fixed that eventually, after all they used to build phones for others, so this should be their own ground!
words of wisdom !
what build quality issues?
Vibration motor sometimes stopped to work for some, or was vibrating like already old. Other is the phone border around screen with some small cracks appearing suddenly.
Vibration is a usual one.
most reviews I saw gave this phone 8 or 9, are you expecting 10 across the board or something?
The phone is good in design and performance in theory. While the heating issue is the main and most expensive in vernee apollo lite. Can you check the photo quality? I didn’t find as promised by them, also 4K is gone since first OTA. Now double tap, clear motion, these are only few I mention.
As money quality ratio it is ok but as promises made by them need to work a lot, I think.
I feel like, once delivered, all of the hype around this device went somehow lost… Users’ reviews aren’t as great as expected before, a good phone with some flaws here and there, but not the game changer someone was waiting for.
Still, waiting for yash’s opinion!
Heard some build quality issues that put me off, let’s see if they fixed it on new batches.
Almost every first batches of every new phone have some kind of built issue, that’s why we should never pre-order… I guess they fixed that eventually, after all they used to build phones for others, so this should be their own ground!
most reviews I saw gave this phone 8 or 9, are you expecting 10 across the board or something?
what build quality issues?
words of wisdom !
Vibration motor sometimes stopped to work for some, or was vibrating like already old. Other is the phone border around screen with some small cracks appearing suddenly.
Vibration is a usual one.
The phone is good in design and performance in theory. While the heating issue is the main and most expensive in vernee apollo lite. Can you check the photo quality? I didn’t find as promised by them, also 4K is gone since first OTA. Now double tap, clear motion, these are only few I mention.
As money quality ratio it is ok but as promises made by them need to work a lot, I think.
Disable the Sound Enhancement (Beloud or whatever) and the speaker should sound a bit better. Dunno what they did with that ‘enhancement’ but it screws up the freq response.
lol … stupid mistake by the coder or engineer ?
nah, the speaker is still pretty bad, it’s serviceable as a phone speaker though (meaning for call and messages)
oh .. i see
btw , who uses the OUTWARD speaker as music player now ? i don’t think thats a trend anymore.. on even en vogue
Disable the Sound Enhancement (Beloud or whatever) and the speaker should sound a bit better. Dunno what they did with that ‘enhancement’ but it screws up the freq response.
lol … stupid mistake by the coder or engineer ?
nah, the speaker is still pretty bad, it’s serviceable as a phone speaker though (meaning for call and messages)
oh .. i see
btw , who uses the OUTWARD speaker as music player now ? i don’t think thats a trend anymore.. on even en vogue
PLEASE REVIEW THE CAM in AMPLE detail !
i don’t want 2 sentences and then “see the pics yerself!” review.
PLEASE do a DETAILED AND PROPER cam review
It’s got a front camera and a back camera. They both seem pretty decent. (end of review – no pics uploaded!)
lol that PERFECTLY sums it up ?
I’m on holiday, but just for you – here’s a couple of indoor (relatively) low light shots as an early Christmas present ?
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1aofycT4mmnSFRlOGJhcnVMVkk
Thanks bro !
how is your general impression of the phone ? are Vernee any good ? have they bought something new to the table ?
I think they are genuinely trying hard, and with success. This being one of the first helio x20 handsets available there are bound to be problems – I expected that, and I hope they’ll sort them given time.
Overall I’m really impressed and pleased with it. Great screen, very responsive, any lags seem to be due to a slow internet connection on the router side, not the phone. Wifi has a good range, gps is excellent. Only connection problem seems to be with the actual phone network which does drop off unexpectedly for a minute or two now and then. However, the signal quality and in-call audio are excellent. (just as I wrote that the signal dropped off!)
Have Vernee brought anything new to the table? Apart from an affordable x20 phone with good specs, probably not. I do think it’s worth comparing with $400 phones.
I’ve tried using Open Camera to force the 4k video recording but it didn’t work. Cameringo gives slightly better results than the stock camera app, but I’m hoping they solve the problems that made them remove 4k.
On that point – they really need to get another ota update ready that doesn’t hang when rebooting during installation.
Cheers
hm… nice impression overall.
always nice to see newcomers kicking it off seamlessly ( unlike Ulefone :p)
about the 4k … did the Apollo Lite have native 4k recording ? or was it disabled through an OTA ??? its a shame if they did that …
by phone network signal problem , what happens when the signal ‘drops’ ??
is it with the internet or with the cellular services (SMS and Calls only) ???
4k recording was native, the problem apparently was overheating. I only tried it once before doing the first ota, and already deleted it, but didn’t notice the phone getting too hot. I was also downloading all my apps and generally setting up the phone and giving it it’s first charge – so not a fair test. It got hot as most phones would, but not excessive in my opinion. After the ota several things were missing –
When the phone signal drops off there is no service – no calls, sms, or mobile internet. Wifi is not affected. Usually lasts for one or two minutes, then returns with Edge or 3g, then 4g.
I’ve got an SJCAM with me and hope to take some shots to compare similar resolutions.
damn .. both the problems are potential deal breakers , esp the signal problem
hope they get an OTA to fix it soon !
im fixated on what the Vernee Mars has to offer !
I think the Apollo-lite was released a little before it was ready, hopefully they are working on the problems in tandem with the Apollo fully loaded version and the Mars.
They keep improving the Thor with ota’s which is very encouraging.
The signal dropouts haven’t bothered me at all, and they claim to have improved that in the last update, which makes it annoying that I haven’t been able to install it yet. Waiting for next one to be more stable
You might want to take a look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5ecn8bZUsI
Thanks 🙂
Did that help at all? I’ve recently ordered this phone, and I’ve been doing a lot research. That’s how I came across that video.
I haven’t tried it yet, but I have installed Network Cell Info Lite to try and monitor the connection quality more subjectively.
The problem is not that bad for me so far, in that I don’t make and receive many calls so it’s possible that I don’t notice when there’s no signal.
I would prefer to wait until the next update and see if they fix it then.
Other than that the phone is great and I am very pleased with it, especially for the price, and even though the camera ability has been reduced it’s still performing better than most phones I’ve had. Looking forward to seeing that restored in future updates too.
I can deal with the camera not being great in low light situations… Even my Moto X Style struggles in low light. The main thing I’m worried about from all the reviews I found, is the sound quality from the speaker. Is it really as bad as some of the reviewers make out?
Also have tried rooting and adding Dolby Atmos? As I’ve read that that greatly improves the sound quality.
Even though I don’t use it much, I still rely on the phone for work and I don’t have a suitable spare if anything goes wrong – so I won’t be rooting it anytime soon. As far as sound quality goes I think it’s fine. Perhaps others have had the very early units, perhaps there is a mixture of parts from different suppliers. If I want hifi quality sound I would be using a Bluetooth speaker like Bose or my Blaupunkt headphones (which I tried the other night and realised that I forgot how good some music is :-D) – I watch quite a few YouTube videos using the phone speaker only for sound and I’ve been perfectly happy with it. We’re still talking about a $200 phone remember… It only has a speaker about 6-8mm diameter – it ain’t going to sound like a Bose Soundwave or take photos like a Nikon dslr. There are practical limitations, I still think Vernee have done a job, if I had been unlucky to have received an earlier or faulty unit I might have a different opinion. I may well be rooting right now to try and improve it. But I’m happy to let them come up with their own solutions for the time being.
Yeah it’s a great phone for the price. I’ve been looking at it for a while, and finally pulled the trigger after finding one on eBay for a good price. I’m just interested to see how it stacks up against my Moto X Style. I’ve had lots of Chinese phones the years. The best so far being the Jiayu S3 Advanced, which I had prior to the Moto X Style.
If you do try out the Dolby Atmos after rooting, let me what you think of it.
How come you are saying what you are saying? You must have lost some critical parts centrally placed between your ears! It was tragic to read all the excuses you served for Vernee! They have not even ONE satisfied customer ! How come! Stupid company!
Greetings Per, you are a bit late coming to this conversation, are you a Vernee owner with a bad experience to be so disparaging ?
As it happens, I’m still using my Vernee Apollo lite after a whole year, which is very unusual for me! I’m still happy with it, and surprisingly Vernee have just issued an update which I’ll install in the next few days.
I’ve just received the Elephone S8 which is a lovely phone and perhaps will become my new daily driver, but I have no regrets about the Apollo-lite.
Perhaps you could be a little less rude in your comments if you want to have any respect from others.
Peace…
Am I the only one who noticed the non-matching top and bottom with the back cover?
http://i1.wp.com/www.gizchina.com/wp-content/uploads/images/2016/09/Vernee-Apollo-Lite-4.jpg?fit=1700%2C757
There is a difference in shade (and material too, imo) yes. It definitely doesn’t not match though, looks pretty sweet in fact. I’ll upload some more photos in a different background in the review next week, hopefully that’ll give you a better look. 🙂
No, I mean the edges don’t align properly. At least that’s how it looks like from the pictures.
PLEASE REVIEW THE CAM in AMPLE detail !
i don’t want 2 sentences and then “see the pics yerself!” review.
PLEASE do a DETAILED AND PROPER cam review
It’s got a front camera and a back camera. They both seem pretty decent. (end of review – no pics uploaded!)
lol that PERFECTLY sums it up 😂
I’m on holiday, but just for you – here’s a couple of indoor (relatively) low light shots as an early Christmas present 😀
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1aofycT4mmnSFRlOGJhcnVMVkk
Thanks bro !
how is your general impression of the phone ? are Vernee any good ? have they bought something new to the table ?
I think they are genuinely trying hard, and with success. This being one of the first helio x20 handsets available there are bound to be problems – I expected that, and I hope they’ll sort them given time.
Overall I’m really impressed and pleased with it. Great screen, very responsive, any lags seem to be due to a slow internet connection on the router side, not the phone. Wifi has a good range, gps is excellent. Only connection problem seems to be with the actual phone network which does drop off unexpectedly for a minute or two now and then. However, the signal quality and in-call audio are excellent. (just as I wrote that the signal dropped off!)
Have Vernee brought anything new to the table? Apart from an affordable x20 phone with good specs, probably not. I do think it’s worth comparing with $400 phones.
I’ve tried using Open Camera to force the 4k video recording but it didn’t work. Cameringo gives slightly better results than the stock camera app, but I’m hoping they solve the problems that made them remove 4k.
On that point – they really need to get another ota update ready that doesn’t hang when rebooting during installation.
Cheers
hm… nice impression overall.
always nice to see newcomers kicking it off seamlessly ( unlike Ulefone :p)
about the 4k … did the Apollo Lite have native 4k recording ? or was it disabled through an OTA ??? its a shame if they did that …
by phone network signal problem , what happens when the signal ‘drops’ ??
is it with the internet or with the cellular services (SMS and Calls only) ???
4k recording was native, the problem apparently was overheating. I only tried it once before doing the first ota, and already deleted it, but didn’t notice the phone getting too hot. I was also downloading all my apps and generally setting up the phone and giving it it’s first charge – so not a fair test. It got hot as most phones would, but not excessive in my opinion. After the ota several things were missing –
When the phone signal drops off there is no service – no calls, sms, or mobile internet. Wifi is not affected. Usually lasts for one or two minutes, then returns with Edge or 3g, then 4g.
I’ve got an SJCAM with me and hope to take some shots to compare similar resolutions.
damn .. both the problems are potential deal breakers , esp the signal problem
hope they get an OTA to fix it soon !
im fixated on what the Vernee Mars has to offer !
I think the Apollo-lite was released a little before it was ready, hopefully they are working on the problems in tandem with the Apollo fully loaded version and the Mars.
They keep improving the Thor with ota’s which is very encouraging.
The signal dropouts haven’t bothered me at all, and they claim to have improved that in the last update, which makes it annoying that I haven’t been able to install it yet. Waiting for next one to be more stable
You might want to take a look at this:
Thanks 🙂
Did that help at all? I’ve recently ordered this phone, and I’ve been doing a lot research. That’s how I came across that video.
I haven’t tried it yet, but I have installed Network Cell Info Lite to try and monitor the connection quality more subjectively.
The problem is not that bad for me so far, in that I don’t make and receive many calls so it’s possible that I don’t notice when there’s no signal.
I would prefer to wait until the next update and see if they fix it then.
Other than that the phone is great and I am very pleased with it, especially for the price, and even though the camera ability has been reduced it’s still performing better than most phones I’ve had. Looking forward to seeing that restored in future updates too.
I can deal with the camera not being great in low light situations… Even my Moto X Style struggles in low light. The main thing I’m worried about from all the reviews I found, is the sound quality from the speaker. Is it really as bad as some of the reviewers make out?
Also have tried rooting and adding Dolby Atmos? As I’ve read that that greatly improves the sound quality. http://bbs.vernee.cc/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=975
Even though I don’t use it much, I still rely on the phone for work and I don’t have a suitable spare if anything goes wrong – so I won’t be rooting it anytime soon. As far as sound quality goes I think it’s fine. Perhaps others have had the very early units, perhaps there is a mixture of parts from different suppliers. If I want hifi quality sound I would be using a Bluetooth speaker like Bose or my Blaupunkt headphones (which I tried the other night and realised that I forgot how good some music is :-D) – I watch quite a few YouTube videos using the phone speaker only for sound and I’ve been perfectly happy with it. We’re still talking about a $200 phone remember… It only has a speaker about 6-8mm diameter – it ain’t going to sound like a Bose Soundwave or take photos like a Nikon dslr. There are practical limitations, I still think Vernee have done a good job, if I had been unlucky to have received an earlier or faulty unit I might have a different opinion. I may well be rooting right now to try and improve it. But I’m happy to let them come up with their own solutions for the time being.
Yeah it’s a great phone for the price. I’ve been looking at it for a while, and finally pulled the trigger after finding one on eBay for a good price. I’m just interested to see how it stacks up against my Moto X Style. I’ve had lots of Chinese phones the years. The best so far being the Jiayu S3 Advanced, which I had prior to the Moto X Style.
If you do try out the Dolby Atmos after rooting, let me what you think of it.
This comment was deleted.
Greetings Per, you are a bit late coming to this conversation, are you a Vernee owner with a bad experience to be so disparaging ?
As it happens, I’m still using my Vernee Apollo lite after a whole year, which is very unusual for me! I’m still happy with it, and surprisingly Vernee have just issued an update which I’ll install in the next few days.
I’ve just received the Elephone S8 which is a lovely phone and perhaps will become my new daily driver, but I have no regrets about the Apollo-lite.
Perhaps you could be a little less rude in your comments if you want to have any respect from others.
Peace…
I’ve found the speaker better than any of my other cheap phones, and my old Nexus.
Unusual for a Chinese phone is that it supports UVC so now I can use an endoscope for inspections (no jokes please)
Unfortunately the latest ota update fails at reboot, several users reported this but we haven’t had a fix for it yet.
Vernee service do respond to emails though, which is encouraging.
THNX – can you share where can we follow this?
Am I the only one who noticed the non-matching top and bottom with the back cover?
There is a difference in shade (and material too, imo) yes. It definitely doesn’t not match though, looks pretty sweet in fact. I’ll upload some more photos in a different background in the review next week, hopefully that’ll give you a better look. 🙂
No, I mean the edges don’t align properly. At least that’s how it looks like from the pictures.
I’ve found the speaker better than any of my other cheap phones, and my old Nexus.
Unusual for a Chinese phone is that it supports UVC so now I can use an endoscope for inspections (no jokes please)
Unfortunately the latest ota update fails at reboot, several users reported this but we haven’t had a fix for it yet.
Vernee service do respond to emails though, which is encouraging.
…. And it’s got a GYROSCOPE woo-hoo! And it works!
THNX – can you share where can we follow this?
Look at the short-circuit admittance parameters back cameras (f/2.0 or f/2.2 and Full HD or 4K)!! !
4k video has already been removed with the software update …
I heard few people complaining about the software (ROM) quality, too. Can you guys say something more here?
Look at the short-circuit admittance parameters back cameras (f/2.0 or f/2.2 and Full HD or 4K)!! !
4k video has already been removed with the software update …
I heard few people complaining about the software (ROM) quality, too. Can you guys say something more here?
Check out my review for a second opinion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r1GlmOiEkM
Check out my review for a second opinion:
You wrote “export brands” and that sums it up. No Chinese will touch these brands with a 10 feet pole.
With all respect to to 200$ barrier, you can buy X20 phones from a true brand. LeEco Le2 or Redmi Note 4.
You wrote “export brands” and that sums it up. No chinese will touch these brands with a 10 feet pole. And they are right of course. No sane person would sacrifice quality of components, manufacturing and quality control for specs. Fantastic specs wont help you if phone breaks down after 2 months. Reliability is the name of the game.
With all respect to to 200$ barrier, you can buy X20 phones from a true brand. LeEco Le2 or Redmi Note 4.
Why are we so in the world stupid that we have baught a Vernee Apollo Lite phone? We must miss something really essential in our heads! Not working MMS, Not working dual cards, and have anybody been able to tell somebody at Vernee the word support, and what that means? I wont beleive so! This is actually the poorest phoneproduct I have ever had in my hands! Things work even better with two tin cans with a line between than trying to use it the way other phones work! How comw Vernee?? Shame on you!