Apollo Phantom V3 Review: A Great Commuter Scooter

I am often disappointed with a good amount of electric kick scooters that I test. Many of them just don’t have a range that satisfies my needs. For a meeting, I often drive from Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, to Lower Manhattan, a total of about 15 miles. Riding a scooter is a lot faster and a lot more enjoyable than the subway (especially in the summer), but it’s not always guaranteed to have enough juice to get home.

But the Apollo Phantom V3 never disappointed me with its range. I once drove from my home in Brooklyn to Manhattan in one go, up 179th Street and across the George Washington Bridge to a coffee shop in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and the Phantom had 43 percent left in the tank – 22 miles. Took me about an hour and a half! It’s the ultimate commuter scooter.

phantom labor

Here’s the catch. The range of an electric scooter not only depends on the size of the battery, but also on a variety of factors, such as the weight of the rider. I’m a 1.85 meter male weighing 110 kilograms – many people can generally cover a few kilometers more than me on the same scooter. People like me need something that can handle extra weight without sacrificing range.

Rated to carry up to 300 pounds, the Phantom V3 easily tackled even the steepest slopes on my way up the George Washington Bridge bike path. The trade-off to getting that range comes down to the weight of the scooter itself. Unfortunately, this thing weighs a whopping 77 pounds. Seventyseven.

I can carry it, yes, but it’s not easy. I really wish Apollo would make folding handlebars because in my narrow stairwell they keep hitting the wall or getting caught in the rails – which doesn’t help when you’re carrying something that heavy. Luckily, the handle is narrow for my hand to grip it comfortably, and the extra handle at the end of the deck is a nice touch. Some lighter scooters have super thick handles that actually hurt my hands when carrying them, so much so that I prefer to carry the Phantom V3.

You may need a hand to pull this electric scooter out of the large packaging it comes in. Setup also required a few more steps than normal; Assembling the handlebars is a more complicated process and requires more screws and parts than comparable models. Strangely none of the wires around the handlebars were connected together and this step was not listed in the instructions. I sat confused for a few minutes, wondering why the phantom wouldn’t turn on. I figured it out and hooked them all up, but it’s strange that this isn’t mentioned in the manual.

As usual, you can pair the scooter with the Apollo companion app iOS or Android, which is much more stable than my previous experience with other Apollo scooters. The connection was also established quickly. Setup requires you to enter your scooter’s serial number, which is annoyingly found on the underside of the deck. That’s my only criticism. You’ll have to go through a lot of safety videos, but it’s helpful and important information.

The app allows you to see your scooter’s riding information, such as the odometer, but you can also adjust a range of settings, from speed and acceleration to the level of regenerative braking. The latter nets you a modest amount of charge if you use the regenerative brake thumb throttle instead of the standard disc brakes. Speaking of which, I would have preferred hydraulic brakes to disc brakes on a scooter this expensive, but the truth is I rarely used them. I stuck with the regenerative braking most of the time and it was quite capable of stopping me quickly.