Chillblast Apollo 15 A desktop PC crammed into a laptop
The official name of this product is the Apollo 15.6in GTX 1050Ti Gaming Laptop, but ‘Apollo 15’ has a nice ring to it, and it’s not just gamers who might be interested in a full-size laptop that can match the speed of a decent desktop PC in all aspects of work and play.
This system is hand-built to order in the UK, which means you sacrifice the slick, slim finish of pricier imports. But you gain some old-fashioned benefits such as a full range of USB 2.0, USB 3.0 and USB 3.1 Type-c ports, both HDMI and mini Displayport monitor outputs, an SD card reader and a DVD writer. The black plastic case is basic, and the coloured stripes on the front don’t distract from the fact that it’s more than an inch thick. Wide bezels around the screen make the whole thing very broad, and yet the backlit keyboard fails to capitalise on this extra space, with a cramped number pad and a Windows key that’s in the wrong place. Typing felt fine, though, and the touchpad is big and responsive.
Inside, the Apollo 15 is more advanced, with an i7 processor from the top-end HQ range within Intel’s Kaby Lake family. The 2GB GTX 1050Ti graphics card is from the bottom end of Nvidia’s Pascal range bubut is powerful enough to run demand demanding 3D games smoothly at high quality at the screen’s Full HD resolution. There’s no SSD as standard, but the 1TB hard dridrive is a hybrid (so it has Ssd-like speed), wiwith a cache that makes it faster at openiopening files. Unlike many laptops, the Apollo can be opened up for upgrades, but it’s not easy, so have a look at Chil Chillblast’s many configuration options ( www.snipca.com/25114) if you think yoyou’ll need even higher specs.
You’d pay upwards of £800 for a desktop PC in a bog-standard case that offered comparable performance, so with a fairly decent matte screen and backlit keyboard included, as well as the benefit of portability, this looks like a good deal. The catch is poor battery life. In our video-playback test, which is designed to represent continuous but fairly light use, the Apollo gave up after just three hours eight minutes.
At 2.45kg, though, plus a 720g mains adapter, you wouldn’t want to carry it around all day anyway. There are certainly heavier gaming laptops, but this is more a computer for lugging between locations than using on the move. On that basis, we can’t give it many marks for style, but it’s not short of technical merit.
A laptop with loads of ports and desktop PC performance, but battery life and design let it down
★★★☆☆
ALTERNATIVE: Samsung Galaxy S8 £689 If you’re shopping in this price bracket, the powerful S8 has a slightly bigger and in reality more impressive screen
ALTERNATIVE: BT Wholehole Home Wi-fi £190 You don’t getet quite as many softwarere features with these dishes,shes, but at the moment theyey are unbeatable value