World’s cheapest Deca-core Vernee Apollo Lite the all-metal with HELIO X20 CPU, 4GB RAM announced for just $200

Vernee, the newest entrant in the Chinese smartphone brands, has gathered a lot of attention with its flagship Vernee Apollo smartphone that was recently launched at $400. The Vernee Apollo came with high-end features and was the cheapest smartphone with 6GB of RAM. But Vernee has outdone itself with 'Lite' version of the Apollo, which retains the powerful Mediatek Helio X20 chipset and offers 4 GB of RAM for just $200. The Vernee has also launched Thor another ultra low-cost smartphone priced at $130 and sports competitive specification. 

Vernee Apollo Lite features a 5.5-inch Full-HD display at 1080×1920 pixels with 401ppi while the Vernee Apollo comes with a 5.5-inch 2K display (Personally we feel anything above 340ppi is almost indistinguishable to most users).Vernee Apollo Lite comes with an all metal uni-body design, just like it's bigger sibling Apollo but with minor design changes. It looks similar to Apollo but the fingerprint sensor and rear camera module have gone square in shape unlike rounded shape on Apollo. It is powered by the 64-bit MediaTek's Helio X20 SoC clocked which consists of two ARM Cortex-A72 clocked at max 2.0GHz, and two sets lower clocked Cortex A-53 Quad cores each in what Mediatek calls it's proprietary Tri-Cluster configuration which is an extension of ARM big.LITTLE configuration. Graphics is handled by a Mali-T880 MP4 GPU (where MP4 means a Quad core GPU). Along with 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 32 GB of internal storage, MicroSD slot with up to 128GB. The smartphone comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow with customized UI.

The Apollo Lite comes with a 16-megapixel camera with dual-tone LED flash on back and a 5-megapixel selfie camera on the front. One limitation we found with this device is that just like many other Chinese brands Vernee has opted for a Hybrid dual SIM dual setup, which means you can either go for a dual SIM or a single SIM with MicroSD card. While the Vernee Apollo was priced at $400, the new Apollo Lite costs exactly the half, that is just $200.

The smartphone supports 4G-LTE, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS and Type-C USB port. At this price, the Apollo Lite is the most affordable smartphone in the market powered by deca-core Tri Cluster Helio X20 SoC. We really love how new Chinese brands are coming to the market, with the challenge of producing the most bang for buck smartphone in the market. Xiaomi was one of the first Chinese manufacturer to bring prince war in the market followed by Huawei, Coolpad, OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo LeEco (formally known as Letv), Meizu and many other OEMs. This has suddenly resulted in very decent smartphones coming at mid range which has has event the big manufacturers like Samsung, Apple take a notice. As consumers spoilt with choice, we are certainly looking forward to Vernee what it brings to the table. Vernee however has not confirmed the launch date of Apollo Lite, also the availability of this phone in international markets outside China like India, Indonesia, US is still a mystery. Stay tuned for more updates.