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Reader Survey >HikMicro Alpex 4K Lite Review: The Ultimate Airgunner’s Dream Scope?
- Last updated: 02/09/2025
One of the standout new products for 2025 has to be the new Alpex 4K Lite digital day/night-vision scope from HikMicro. It has been designed specifically for airgun use and provides the same amount of tech as the original Alpex 4K, but with around 50% less size and weight. I’ve been lucky enough to have one at my disposal for the past two months, and I have to admit that I’m totally and utterly in love with it.
It may look like a traditional 30mm tubed scope, but this compact unit measures just 283x30x65mm and weighs around 468g. You’ll notice that there is a Class 1 laser on top, which is where this unit comes into its own, as you can laser rangefind with it from just 3m out to a 1,000m detection range with the press of a button. It also has a built-in ballistic calculator, which is very easy to set up and invaluable out in the field. This scope makes pest control a doddle. The ballistic calculator is pinpoint accurate, and with the simple press of the laser rangefinder button, the scope works its magic and gives you a point of aim in milliseconds.
I’ve been using it exclusively on rats and rabbits recently, and I’m amazed at how much it has changed my hunting. I rarely took shots past my 30m zero range in the past, but I’ve been taking rabbits at 42m without even thinking about it with the Alpex 4K Lite, such is the precision of the calculator inside.
It is powered by an internal battery but can also cleverly accept an additional 18650 battery to provide a total continuous runtime of around eight hours, which is pretty impressive given the amount of tech held within its shell. You get one 18650 battery and a smart charger supplied with the scope.
This unit features five different viewing modes: Day, Night, Green, Yellow and Auto. Anyone who’s into photography will tell you that an f/2.0 aperture lens is the ultimate for night-time and low-light photography, and in photographic terms, a quality fixed 50mm lens can cost well over a thousand pounds. Here, you get a 40mm f/2.0 lens with a digital 1–8x zoom included. You’ll need to buy an external IR torch in order to use the Night mode, but HikMicro makes a great IR torch and quick-release mount specifically for the Alpex range of scopes.
Another great feature is the ability to record UHD video with sound, thanks to the onboard microphone. There’s plenty of onboard storage capability, and you can also connect the unit to the HikMicro app on your smartphone to browse and download your files, and even view everything live. This hotspot connectivity is also used to install the regular firmware updates that HikMicro releases to provide continuous improvements, eliminating the need to faff around with leads and downloads from your computer.
One thing that strikes you when you turn this unit on is its simplicity. Press the on/off button, and the unit fires up in less than a second. A short press of this button once the unit is switched on will put it into standby, and again, it’s an instant start-up from here, too, with a short press of the same button.
Up top, there are three buttons with a rotating collar underneath, and it’s these you need to use to operate the entire unit. The right-hand button takes you into the menus, the left-hand button is your video record or photo capture, and the bottom button operates the laser rangefinder. Simple.
All the menu options are accessed by pressing the right-hand button on the three-way pad up top. A long press opens the first menu page, then you use the rotating collar to scroll up and down. A short press of the menu button selects whatever you have chosen, then a long press takes you back to the main menu or saves whatever data you have entered.
The first thing you have to do is connect the scope to your smartphone. To do this, simply scroll down through the menu by twisting the rotating collar until you get to the “Network” setting, then use the push button and rotating collar to toggle between “Hotspot” and “Close” — you want it to stay on the former.
Now open the app on your phone and follow the instructions, which are basically opening your internet settings on your phone, selecting the unit, and then entering the password, which is displayed on the screen in the scope. With your Alpex 4K Lite paired to your phone, you can now take photos and record video directly to your smartphone via the unit.
The first port of call is to get into the main menu, then scroll down to “Advanced Settings” and press the Menu button to enter the submenu. Scroll down to “Zeroing” and short-press the Menu button again. This takes you into the zeroing menu. These are your five different saveable profiles to choose from, which is really handy to have because you can set No.1 to, say, 30m (you can choose either metres or yards in the settings), with a lightweight pellet, then maybe set No.2 to 15m for barn ratting with a heavier pellet, and so on.
In this menu, you can also set your reticle type, of which there are 10 choices, as well as a choice of eight colours: blue, green, red, yellow, orange, white, grey and black.
I love how easy it is to get the Alpex 4K Lite zeroed; it really is child’s play with HikMicro’s “One Shot Zero”. Simply line up on your target and adjust the focus ring found on the objective to make sure everything is crisp, then press the Menu button and scroll down once more to “Correction”, and this is where the magic happens. Input your distance, scroll down and increase the zoom range to whatever you want for zeroing, and then take a shot at your target. The choice below the zoom in the menu looks like a snowflake, and this is what you use to freeze the frame. During zeroing, I would suggest that you have the rifle on a bench, either on a beanbag or a bipod, but you must make sure it’s a rock-solid position.
Once you have taken your first shot, place the crosshair back onto the bullseye of your target and freeze the frame. You can then scroll down one last time to the X and Y adjustments screen and move the additional crosshair to where your pellet hit the target. Once you’ve done this, simply long-press the Menu button and then save the parameters. Your next shot should be bang on target. If it is slightly out, that’s because you didn’t freeze the screen in exactly the same place as you took your initial shot. Just go through the process again, and you’ll get it, although it will be easier this time because your point of impact will be way closer to your point of aim.
The next step is where a lot of people tend to get a bit twitchy, but I can assure you it’s really very easy to set up. You just require a few very basic bits of information.
Below the “Correction” menu option is the “Ballistic Calculator” option. Scroll down to it and short-press the “Menu” button. Once there, press the button again to turn “Ballistic Calculation” on. This brings up a screen to input all of your data. With regards to the first “Drag Model” setting, I just left that as it came. Next, you have to input the speed at the muzzle, which for my .177 R10 SE using QYS Streamlined Heavy pellets is 227m/s (you can select metric or imperial in the main menu to have measurements in metres or yards, and millimetres or inches).
Next is your altitude. How much difference this makes for airguns, I’m unsure about, but a quick ping on Google Earth will tell you that. I just left mine at 0. Next up is temperature. For the sake of it, I entered the correct temperature at the time of zeroing.
Now comes the important bit. You have to use Google and find the ballistic coefficient of the pellet you are using. It took me all of three seconds to find it for the QYS. Last but not least is the height of the scope above the bore. You can use a ruler to get a fairly accurate measurement to the nearest millimetre.
Now save it all and you’re good to go. It really is that simple.
With the ballistic calculator set up, you can now test it out at your local range, or try setting out targets at 5m, 30m and 45m. With the scope at base magnification (3.5x), you’ll see a little white box near your reticle. This is where the onboard laser will ping, so it’s important to position that white box on your target, not the centre of the crosshair. Press the laser ranging button once, and the scope will ping your target and tell you how far away it is in the right-hand menu on screen. You’ll also then notice an additional crosshair either above or below the centre of the reticle, and that’s where you need to aim. Yes, the clever little Alpex 4K Lite has worked out your holdover/under for you. Honestly, this function really has changed the way I hunt now; it’s brilliant.
Another key selling point of the new Alpex 4K Lite is the ability to switch between 50 and 100 frames per second. The 50fps setting is superb, with absolutely no lag when tracking your quarry, but the 100fps is out of this world when tracking a fast-moving target, as there’s zero motion blur. The electronics onboard give smoother rendering and faster response, and you won’t even realise that it is, in fact, a digital scope.
Pinpoint precision and crisp, clear viewing in both daylight and complete darkness, plus extremely simple operation, make the new Alpex 4K Lite absolutely perfect for any airgunner.
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