Vernee Apollo Review

First announced with Vernee's launch and simultaneously with the Thor, Vernee Apollo didn't make an appearance for quite some time, but made way for the Apollo Lite and the Mars. Finally, it appeared in October last year at the GITEX 2016 Exhibition in the Dubai WTC and was officially announced in November, with the first units being shipped in December and in some areas - in January this year. With the Apollo Lite already gaining much praise, the strain to meet expectations on its more powerful sibling is even stronger. Marketed as the "world's first VR flagship based on a MediaTek SoC", the Apollo does look/sound like having all the prerequisites to become a best-selling flagship. Having in mind that the manufacturer maintains quite competitive prices for its models (this one currently retails at USD 260) means that the Vernee Apollo is a serious contender for the hearts and minds of people looking for a feature-packed, high-end smartphone at an affordable price.

Specifications

Vernee Apollo is equipped with a 5.5-inch display that packs an LTPS display from AUO with a QHD resolution (1440 x 2560). The pixel density measures 538 ppi and is ideal for using the smartphone with a VR headset and enjoying high-quality image. The panel has a static contrast ratio of 1500:1 and a peak brightness of 500 cd/sq.m. Its coverage of the NTSC color space is 95%. The display is protected by a Dragontrail Glass and has a 2.5D curved glass finish. It graces a full-metal body, crafted out from a single slab of 6000 series aluminum alloy. Under its fortified rear plate ticks a 64-bit, 20nm MediaTek Helio X25 (MT6797T). Its tri-cluster architecture promises optimized performance and power efficiency. The CPU consists of two 2.5GHz Cortex-A72 cores, four 2GHz Cortex-A53 and another four of those clocked at 1.55GHz. The deca-core CPU is coupled with the most powerful Mali GPU - the quad-core Mali-T880 MP4 clocked at 850MHz. Their work is aided by 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM, which is double-channel and clocked at 933MHz. The built-in memory measures 64GB and is of the eMMC 5.1 type. It can be expanded with up to 128GB. The model features a proximity, light, accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, and Hall sensor, along with an advanced rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. The camera department includes a 21-megapixel primary shooter with a Sony IMX230 Exmor RS sensor and a 6-element, fully customized lens with an f/2.2 aperture. High-quality photos are ensured by the dual-channel 14-bit Imagiq ISP from MediaTek. The camera is aided by a dual-tone LED light, phase-detection AF, and close loop motor. The front-facing snapper is equipped with an 8-megapixel Sony IMX 219 sensor and an f/2.4 lens. The model supports dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, 4G LTE Cat. 6 networks with VoLTE, GPS and GLONASS. It has a USB Type-C 2.0 port with OTG support along with a 3.5 mm jack. A 3180 mAh, high-density battery from ATL keeps the lights on and is combined with a 9V/2A fast charger that employs five technologies for protecting the battery during charging. The smartphone runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow and is bound to be updated to Android 7.0 Nougat. Here you can check out all detailed Vernee Apollo specifications.

What's in the box

Vernee Apollo arrives in a bulky, rectangular black box with the company and model name printed on the top of the lid and its sides. What looks like being a rather big case with a strap that holds the device inside the box, is a VR headset actually. The device is carefully packaged and has a screen-protector that's pre-applied. The box also includes user manuals for the device and the VR headset, warranty card, 9V/2A fast charger, micro-USB 2.0 to USB Type-C 2.0 cable, SIM tray pin. The VR headset is plastic with the part that actually is placed around your eyes made of soft rubber. You open two plastic sides to let the goggles pop out. The strap that attaches the set to your head has to be added. The smartphone goes on the front. It is attached simply by a thin elastic band with velcro. The plastic rim of the headset that should surround the smartphone has two cut off areas - this is for the buttons of the device to stay free from being pressed, and of course for easier access to them if needed.

Design, build and controls

Apollo retains the classic business appearance of all Vernee smartphones. It is finely built and meticulously crafted, incorporating premium materials. To be more specific, the device is made of a single ingot of 6000-series aluminum alloy. In this series, aluminum is mixed with silicon and magnesium predominantly, but also contains titanium, chromium, iron, copper, manganese, and zinc. This type of material has good qualities, is easy to work with and can be hardened, if needed. The body is carved inside and out using CNC, which provides utmost precision. Then a nano-injection molding process follows. It mechanically bonds plastic to the aluminum surface, after making a special dipping on it. In mobile phones, it is used mainly internally for joint areas. Many other processes occur as well, including arc cutter carving, 360-degree high-speed sandblasting, anodic oxidation (applied twice), and providing anti-fingerprint coating for the rear plate. The latter has been reinforced by increasing its thickness to over 0.5 mm for additional toughness. The back panel has gently sloping vertical sides towards the frame as to provide improved ergonomics. It flows into gentle chamfered rear edges, making a subtle transition to the frame that ends with very thin, glossy chamfered edges to the front. They tightly rim the protective plastic casing of the display unit, covered with a 2.5D curved glass. The overall feeling is of a well-made piece of industrial design. The rectangular body has gently curved corners, exquisite antenna bands (probably one of the most stylish solutions we've seen corresponding to those of HTC 10 and OnePlus 3). It is also quite compact. Just like the Apollo Lite, its more powerful sibling is 152 mm high and is 75.6 mm wide. The first measurement is well below average, while the second is within normal for a smartphone with a 5.5-inch display. Besides improving hand-handling experience, the curved back sides make the phone look slimmer than its 9.3 mm. Yes, for a smartphone with a 3180 mAh battery and a 5.5-inch display, the thickness is above average. Vernee Apollo weighs 188 grams, which is a tad on the heavier side, but is a sure sign that nothing is spared in terms of materials and quality internals. The model has a grey and gold color versions. We are reviewing a grey unit. Vernee Apollo shares many common design features with its Lite version. One such feature is that there are two separate SIM card slots positioned on the left hand side of the smartphone. The lower one is for a micro-SIM card only. The upper one can be used either with a nano-SIM, or a microSD card, if you need more storage. You'll need only one pin to open them. When you peek in for the first time, you'll see plastic cards pre-inserted in the trays. Their function is only informative, so you should remove them prior to placing a real SIM or microSD card. On the opposite side of the device the volume and power buttons are positioned. They are made of metal, too, and provide pleasant tactile experience. On the top frame a 3.5 mm jack is placed, while the bottom frame features a USB Type-C 2.0 port in the middle between two speaker grilles. The single speaker on board is placed behind the right one. Above the display you will see the LED notification light, light and proximity sensor, front-facing camera, and earpiece. The area below the display has no other function but to serve as a place for a safe grip on the phone without triggering any function. The navigation buttons are software ones. You can customize their appearance from the corresponding menu in the Settings, which include options for hiding them, switching the places of the Menu and Back buttons, and adding a button for the Quick Settings. On the back of the device there are a dual-tone LED flash (the warm light below the cold one) and a rounded camera module to its right along with a rounded fingerprint sensor below the camera unit. The brand and model names are imprinted above the lower antenna band.

Display

For the Apollo, Vernee has opted for an LTPS display made by AUO, unlike choosing an IGZO screen from Sharp as it did for the Lite. There's a good reason for this - they wanted to offer a VR-ready smartphone and for this you need high resolution and high pixel density. The Apollo panel has a QHD resolution (1440 x 2560) and a pixel density of 538 ppi. LTPS (Low Temperature PolySilicon) is better with high resolutions and pixel densities because it offers significantly higher carrier mobility than conventional amorphous silicone. Thus display units may remain small, while offering very high resolutions, higher brightness and improved power consumption at the same time. The higher current that drives pixels on reduces stutters in real-time video reproduction and the pixel charging time. Finally, such display units are lighter, thinner and cost effective. The Apollo display is specified to have a peak brightness of 500 cd/sq.m. and a static contrast ratio of 1500:1. It is also said to cover 95% of the NTSC color space, which means that colors should look over-saturated as this is more than 100% coverage of the sRGB color gamut. The display is protected by a Dragontrail Glass with 2.5D curved glass edges for improved tactile experience and arrives with a pre-applied screen protector. Our Vernee Apollo review unit showed significantly lower brightness and static contrast ratio than specified. The peak white luminance at 100% brightness level measures 383 cd/sq.m., which is far away from the 500 cd/sq.m. stated officially. It is hard to read the display under direct sunlight. The black luminance values at all brightness levels are higher than usual and coupled with not so good white ones, result in a very low contrast ratio of around 750:1, which is twice lower than the 1500:1 specified. The temperature of the white point is higher than 11000 K at all brightness levels, meaning colors look noticeably colder.

Brightness	White luminance	Black luminance	Contrast	Color temperature
100 %	382.946 cd/m2	0.503 cd/m2	761 : 1	11025 K
75 %	297.07 cd/m2	0.389 cd/m2	764 : 1	11164 K
50 %	202.873 cd/m2	0.270 cd/m2	751 : 1	11380 K
25 %	113.707 cd/m2	0.151 cd/m2	753 : 1	11329 K
0 %	16.943 cd/m2	0.023 cd/m2	737 : 1	11610 K

The color gamut coverage of Apollo's display is specified as being 95% of NTSC, which is much wider than the sRGB gamut. However, the CIE diagram below shows that the display of our review unit barely covers the sRGB color space. In addition, there are slight deviations in color in all three major areas - red, green, and blue. The sub-pixel geometry of the screen is a classic striped one. The viewing angles shot shows a very significant loss in brightness. The Display menu from the Settings does include MediaTek's MiraVision tech, so you can tweak the color saturation, dynamic contrast, and switch on the BluLight Defender, which can make the colors look warmer by decreasing the levels of blue light emitted from the display. Think of it as a reading mode. The advanced chipset also provides another technology, called SmartScreen. It is part of the MiraVision suite and is used to enhance the viewing experience, while reducing the power consumed by the display. Simply put, it adjusts individual pixels in the display under different lighting conditions to reflect the ambient light and the content. There's an UltraDimming technology as well for late-night reading.

OS, UI and software

Vernee uses stock Android on its devices and the Apollo is no exception. It arrives with 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box and is bound to be updated to Android 7.0 Nougat. Currently the Nougat seeds to the previous model released by the manufacturer - Vernee Mars and if the same time-frame is kept for the Apollo, the Android N for it won't be available for another 3 months. It is already known that the company is developing its own UI, called VOS, but it is still not ready. They promise it will be open for additional customization, once released. Currently we are dealing with a stock Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The Lock screen is not modified in any way and provides shortcuts to the Dialer and Camera apps. Notifications and the Quick Settings are switched on to appear on the Lock screen by default. Swiping on it unlocks the device and you land on the home screen with two rows of apps. The upper one is like a favourites/most used one and contains Camera, Gallery, Settings, and Play Store. The bottom one is docked and includes Dialer, Contacts, App Tray icon, Messenger, and default Browser. A tap and hold on the home button brings up the Task Manager. The Notifications can be summoned by swiping once downwards from the top of the screen and a second swipe (or a single swipe with two fingers) brings up the Quick Settings with toggles for Wi-Fi connections, Bluetooth, Data connection, DND mode, Airplane mode, Audio profiles, Auto-rotate, Flashlight, Location, Cast (screen), etc. The System UI Tuner and User Accounts settings are disabled. The Volume and Power off shades are standard. A tap and hold on an empty space on the Home screen opens the Widgets menu that is pretty standard and allows you not only to add widgets on your Home screen, but also change its wallpaper. The Settings menu under this option contains only a toggle for Allow rotation. The Settings are standard and contain four main groups of options. Of course, the first one is the Wireless & networks group, from where you can manage your data usage, SIM cards, wireless connections. which allow you to set up Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, VPN connections, etc. Of course, there are options regarding the Wi-Fi Hotspot, and Turbo download functions. The second group of settings is called Device and starts off with the Display settings. The most noteworthy function they contain is the MiraVision software, which optimizes the picture quality. In this particular case, it lets you adjust the picture mode (color saturation), dynamic contrast and bluelight defender. From here you can also adjust the brightness level, activate the Daydream (Screen saver) function, change the home screen wallpaper and font size. The Sound & notification settings come second after Display and as usual contain four pre-set sound profiles, notifications options, DND mode management and a sound enhancement menu. The Apps management is the third sub-group and contains settings for each application that is installed on the device, including app permissions and links, list of application, which are allowed to draw over other apps, modify system settings, etc. From the Device menu you can also monitor the storage, memory, and battery. The latter will be discussed in more detail in the Battery section of this review. The third main group of settings is called Personal and allows you to manage your Location, Accounts, Language & input, Backup & reset. Under this group the Security settings are listed. They contain the usual options for increasing your phone's security. Once you setup a screen lock that's different from a swipe, this activates the Smart Lock function, which allows your device to stay unlocked if it is near a trusted place, device, face, or your body. With a more secure screen lock in place, you can also add and remove fingerprint IDs. Besides for unlocking the device, you can use them for authorizing purchases and app access as wel. There's a Google settings menu, which provides you with more sophisticated tools to manage your account, enhance your security and get access to trusted content. Language & input and Back up & reset are with the default Android M settings. The last group is called System and it lets you adjust the Date & time and Schedule power on and off. It also contains the usual Accessibility settings, Printing options, and About phone menu. There's a Navigation Bar menu as well from where you can choose whether the navigation should be hidden or not, and how it should look like. The applications on Vernee Apollo are accessed from the App Tray icon on the Home screen. They are listed in the traditional Android M way - all apps on one page that can be scrolled, in alphabetical order. From this list you can either uninstall an app or get more information about it, by dragging its icon to the corresponding option. You can also list your applications on screens successive to the home one. You can either remove them from the screen, or uninstall them completely. Besides with Play Store, the device arrives with a standard package of applications and no clutter at all. On board you will find: Backup and restore, Browser, Calculator, Calendar, Camera, Clock, Contacts, Downloads, Email, File Manager, FM Radio, Gallery, Messenger, Music, Dialer, Search, Settings and Sound Recorder. Since the Apollo is a VR-ready device, it arrived with a VR player pre-installed - GoVR Player.

Networks, calls and connectivity

Vernee Apollo is equipped with two separate SIM trays, with both cards working on a dual standby mode, supporting 4G networks. The lower tray is for a micro-SIM card, while the upper one can house either a nano-SIM, or a microSD card for additional internal memory. The device supports the following network bands: 2G GSM (900, 1900, 2100 MHz), 3G WCDMA (900 and 2100 MHz) and 4G FDD-LTE (800, 1800, 2100, 2600 MHz). LTE networks are Cat. 6 ones (up to 300 mbps downling speed and up to 50 mbps uplink speed) with VoLTE support. The device performed excellently in all networks and managed to maintain a good reception and call quality even in areas with low coverage. As long as it concerns wireless connectivity options, the model supports dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 (b/g/n at 2.4GHz and a/n at 5GHz). The Turbo download option in the Settings allows you to download files that are larger than 20MB faster by using available Wi-Fi and mobile data connections simultaneously. Wi-Fi Hotspot and Cast screen are available as well along with support for Bluetooth 4.0. The model has a USB Type-C 2.0 port with OTG support, which works fine, and a 3.5 mm jack. It works excellently with both GPS and GLONASS satellite positioning systems and detects satellites from both quickly and accurately.

Performance

Under Vernee Apollo's hood ticks a MediaTek Helio X25 (MT6797T) chipset. This 64-bit system on-chip is manufactured after the 20nm process and employs MediaTek's tri-cluster architecture with ten CPU cores, created to provide a flexible solution for power efficiency, reliable performance and top-notch results, when needed, by efficient allocation of tasks. The first CPU cluster of Helio X25 contains two Cortex-A72 cores clocked at 2.5GHz. The second consists of four Cortex-A53 cores ticking at 2GHz. The third has another four Cortex-A53 cores, but clocked at 1.55GHz. Graphics handling relies on the currently most powerful Mali GPU - the quad-core Mali-T880 MP4, clocked at 850MHz. The balancing between the CPU clusters and between the CPU the GPU is made by MediaTek's CorePilot technology for heterogeneous multi-processing. This SoC can also be found in another device we have reviewed - the Meizu Pro 6, which scored 101157 points in AnTuTu. Vernee Apollo scored 92769 points in AnTuTu and this result is more comparable to the one of devices based on a Helio X20 SoC, such as the Vernee Apollo Lite (93030 points), LeEco Le 2 (X620) (92374 points) and the Zopo Speed 8 (92644 points). The case is similar with the results from the Basemark and Geekbench tests, with the differences being marginal. In Vellamo, the Apollo is outperformed by the other devices. Sling Shot, GFX, and Epic Citadel's benchmark tests are focused on graphics handling and gaming. Regarding Sling Shot results we can say that the Apollo outperforms, but only with a little, the Helio X20-based smartphones. As long as it concerns the Ice Storm tests, the Apollo outperforms the Meizu Pro as well as the other devices mentioned above. The PCMark Work 2.0 test is more strict and that's why the Apollo score is slightly lower than that of the other models and can't be compared to them. There are 4GB of dual-channel LPDDR3 RAM clocked at 933MHz. Despite being of the older generation, the RAM is generous enough to help the chipset efficiently. You can open and switch between a multitude of apps without experiencing any stutter or glitching. The eMMC 5.1 on-board storage is quite generous. It measures 64GB and, if this is not enough for you, it can be expanded with up to 128GB. Of those 64 GB, 54GB are available to the user. The Androbench results reveal typical reading/writing speeds for the eMMC 5.1 type of internal memory. The chipset is equipped with what MediaTek calls a Tiny Sensor Hub. It includes a proximity, light, and Hall sensor, an accelerometer, compass, gyroscope as well as a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner. The latter features a 112 x 96 sampling matrix and provides enhanced recognition rate along with synchronous screen wake-up. It is fast and efficient.

Cameras

You get a traditional Android Camera app with a shutter and video recording buttons placed next to each other on the home screen of the application, shortcuts to the LED flash and HDR settings, a separate settings icon. The latter contains the standard options for photo size, video quality, ISO, exposure, white balance, face detection, EIS, etc. It's almost the same with the front-facing snapper, but it also provides beautification settings. Of course you can edit a photo after you take a shot. You can apply a filter, effect, crop, rotate or in any other away deform the image as well as adjust the saturation, contrast, hue, curves, sharpness, vibrance, etc.

Primary camera

Unlike Apollo Lite, in which Vernee has opted for Samsung sensors for both cameras, in Apollo, the manufacturer has placed Sony sensors for the primary and secondary shooter. The main camera packs a 21-megapixel Sony IMX230 Exmor RS sensor with a 1/2.4" size. It is coupled with a full customized 6-element lens with an f/2.2 aperture and a dual-tone LED flash. Phase-detection autofocus and the closed loop motor ensure fast focusing and sharp images as a result. The camera's work is aided by MediaTek's dual-channel 14-bit Imagiq ISP. It makes photos with a resolution of 5312 x 3984 pixels and 4K videos (3840 x 2160) at 30 fps. Other smartphones, which we have reviewed and use the same sensor for their primary cameras are the Meizu Pro 6 and Zopo Speed 8. There are two issues we have noticed. The first is related to the white balance - sometimes the camera cannot do it right and that adds a yellowish-cyan tint to some of the photos. The second regards the panorama. Every panorama photo we made shows defects in areas, which like like the "seams" between the separate frames.

Secondary camera

The front-facing snapper of Vernee Apollo is equipped with an 8-megapixel Sony IMX 219 sensor and an 84° wide-angle lens with an f/2.4 aperture. Some of its more noteworthy features include BME HDR and Lens Shading. The camera outputs photos with a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels and can shoot HD videos at 30 fps.

Audio

Vernee Apollo utilizes the standard Music app of Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It has no-thrills design and the only thing it offers is four ways to group your audio files. Of course there are options to loop a playlist and/or shuffle the audio files, while playing along with a traditional equalizer. The latter contains a choice of several pre-set audio profiles and stereo effects. The sound enhancement options can be found in the Sound & notification menu from the Settings. Our audio test showed that the Apollo is as good as any other smartphone out there in terms of audio quality. As usual, we perform our audio test by using the TASCAM US-2x2 audio interface and the RightMark Audio Analyzer software. All audio enhancement features are disabled. The results do not take into regard the speaker. The model scores excellently in frequency response, but in THD + Noise it only scores average. The rest of the parameters are accessed as being Very good and so is the overall result.

Test	Value	RMAA rating
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB	+0.01, -0.12	Excellent
Noise level, dB (A)	-94.2	Very good
Dynamic range, dB (A)	94.1	Very good
THD, %	0.0082	Very good
THD + Noise, dB (A)	-78.8	Average
IMD + Noise, %	0.010	Very good
Stereo crosstalk, dB	-79.3	Very good
IMD at 10 kHz, %	0.018	Very good
General performance		Very good

Battery

The Battery menu from the Settings contain the usual Standby intelligent power using (switched on by default), the battery monitor, and battery usage data. The additional standard options include the Battery Saver and the Battery optimization for specific apps. Some features can be optimized as well such as the location accuracy, which contains a battery saving mode. There's a Schedule power on & off function, too. Vernee Apollo is equipped with a 3180 mAh Li-Pol non-removable battery from ATL with a 9V/2A fast charger utilizing Vernee's Vcharge fast charging technology. It combines software and hardware optimizations for safe fast charging. There are 5 charging protections: adapter voltage monitoring, smart judgement on quick charging condition, interface overload protection, overcurrent and overheating protection. According to the specifications, 50% of the battery capacity can charged in 30 minutes and full capacity is reached in 74 minutes. After 1000 times of charging and discharging, the battery retains 80% of its initial rated capacity. Our charging time-battery temperature graph shows that for the first 7 minutes the charging speed is slow and in order to complete the first 10% of the capacity the battery needs 13 minutes. At 10 minutes the charging rate increases and keeps a steady pace till 90% of the battery are full. This happens 1 hour and 8 minutes after the start of the process. For the next 15 minutes the battery reached its full capacity. The whole process needed 1 hour and 23 minutes, which is close to the specified official time of 1 hour and 14 minutes. At the same time the battery temperature at the very beginning measured 34°C and after the initial 7 minutes its temperature quickly rose together with the charging speed. It went on rising till it reached 48°C and preserved this level till the battery reached slightly more than 80% of its capacity. Afterwards the temperature started dropping and at the end of the process measured 35-36°C. Our browsing time test shows that the battery does not discharge linearly. Instead, it starts with slow discharging from 100% and after 10 minutes, the discharging rates increases. This rate is preserved till the battery capacity reaches 1% and maintains this charge for around 15-20 minutes till it depletes completely. The whole discharging time while real-life browsing with the Vernee Apollo is 4 hours and 8 minutes. The battery temperature during this process starts at 34°C and gradually rises to 44°C half an hour before full discharge. After that it dropped to 38-39°C, maintained till the end. Our browsing test simulates real user interaction with the browser - tapping, swiping/scrolling, zooming in/out, etc. The main goal is to reproduce how users browse in reality by using real Wi-Fi connections and some of the most popular websites at the moment, such as various social networks, video sharing, news, technology and mobile industry related websites, etc. The screen of the device has been calibrated to 200 cd/m² for the test. The graph above demonstrates the video playback battery life of Vernee Apollo. For this test we have used a 4K video (3840 x 2160) at 30 fps, captured by us with OnePlus 3T, looped in VLC Media Player. The video format is H.264 and its bitrate is ~55 Mbps. From being fully charged, the battery depleted completely in 5 hours and 27 minutes. The pattern of discharging is very much like the one of the browsing test. For about 10 minutes at the beginning discharging is low and after that gradually increases. It maintains a steady pace till the battery reaches 1% of its capacity. At that moment discharging slows down significantly and the device continues working for almost half an hour till the battery depletes entirely. The battery temperature starts off at 28°C and raises quickly to 33°C after the first 10 minutes. Then it gradually increases to 38°C with sporadic jumps to 39°C. This temperature is preserved almost till the very end of the process, when the battery temperature measures 37°C. In both tests (browsing and video playback), the battery temperature rises with 10 degrees. The temperature data in all tests we make is reported by the device we test.

Despite having an optimized software and hardware for fast charging, the battery did not show a satisfactory result at least according to PCMark's Work 2.0 battery life test. It showed a result of 4 hours and 22 minutes, which in general means weak battery life, especially for an accumulator with a capacity of 3180 mAh. On the other hand you have a device with a QHD screen, which consumes more power than a display with a lower resolution. The test has been performed with the display's brightness calibrated at 200 cd/sq.m. as per Futuremark's recommendations. The software of the test recognized the device as Apollo Lite, but it was the Apollo that was tested.

Final thoughts

Vernee Apollo currently retails at USD 260-300, including a free VR headset and for this price it is a very good smartphone to have. In addition to a generous package, the smartphone brings a QHD display, very good performance and camera quality. The fans of stock Android devices will definitely appreciate Apollo's clean OS, which works flawlessly in all levels. The only real area that needs improvement is battery life and the panorama mode of the camera. All in all, this device offers a good price/quality ratio and will definitely appeal to those of you who are looking for a powerful, VR-ready smartphone that arrives with a free VR headset.