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PULSAR AXION COMPACT XG30 THERMAL MONOCULAR

  • Last updated: 11/11/2024
  • Review
PULSAR AXION COMPACT XG30 THERMAL MONOCULAR

Dropping into my hands this month is the brand-new Axion Compact XG30 thermal monocular. It arrived pre-launch and with no accompanying press release, so I was properly curious to see what Pulsar had come up with. My first impression out of the box was, “Sugar, this thing is small!” Embarrassingly, it turns out Axions have always been tiny, but time spent with larger monoculars had made me forget just how much. Anyway, I love the way its petite dimensions let me slip it into a shirt pocket for summer stalking, tuck it into the side pouch of a bino caddy, and even cradle it alongside my binoculars for some ad-hoc multispectral spotting!

What’s new then?
OK, but if Axions are compact by nature, what’s behind the new name? Checking the data on Pulsar’s website suggests two answers: first, it’s the smallest ever Pulsar device to offer a big 640x480 thermal sensor; and second, they’ve shrunk the price! Thus, the Axion Compact XG35 costs a budget-friendly £1,579.95 (£760 less than the Axion 2 XG35), whereas the XG30 model (on test here) is yours for just £1,399.95.
The 640x480 sensor in question is obviously the XG rather than the XP version. The primary difference is pixel size: 12µm (XG) vs. 17µm (XP). As well as making it possible to reduce the sensor size enough to fit into the Compact’s diminutive housing, the smaller 12µm pixels deliver both a higher base magnification (assuming a constant lens size), and an image with smoother edges and more detailed heat mapping, both of which make detecting and identifying objects easier. The downside is that smaller pixels don’t catch as many photons as bigger ones, giving the XG sensor a NETD score of ≤40 millikelvins compared to ≤25 for the XP. That said, NETD’s advantage matters most in foul weather, whereas the XG’s superior image quality will be evident on every outing.
Given the choice between the 30mm and 35mm versions of the Axion Compact, I opted for the former because, just as smaller pixels boost magnification, so do bigger lenses, and extra magnification guzzles up field-of-view. The latter is always my priority in a thermal spotter since a wide field of view maximises speed and minimises movement when scanning the landscape. In reality, I needn’t have worried, because although the XG30’s 2x base magnification gives an unprecedented 25.6x16.0m of coverage at 100m, the 3x XG35 still delivers a positively panoramic 21.9x13.7m. This translates into fast detection and reduced fatigue, as you spot your quarry that little bit quicker and stay alert that little bit longer.

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Controls
The higher definition of the 640x480/12µm sensor also lets you step up the digital zoom further before pixelation becomes a serious issue. Consequently, both Compact models offer four 2x increments, giving a maximum of 16x for the XG30 and 20x for the XG35. The digital zoom is conveniently controlled by long presses on the furthest of three buttons situated on top of the Axion’s comfortable, palm-sized, magnesium-alloy housing. Quick presses on this button let you cycle through three amplification levels (normal, high, and ultra), which provide a shortcut to optimising the image for any given situation, and scroll UP when in menu mode.
The other two buttons are Menu (in the middle) and Image (at the rear), the latter doubling up as the scroll-down control. Stippling on the Menu button, and a concave Power button (nearest the lens), provide tactile contrast with the smoother Up/Down buttons, making the controls easy to differentiate by feel. Also tactile and practical is a rubber insert in the base of the housing that aids grip and resists impacts.
As usual with Pulsar, a quick press on the Menu button takes you to a suite of quick settings: brightness (1 to 20), contrast (1 to 20), continuous zoom (in 0.1x increments) and stadiametric rangefinding. In rangefinding mode, a pair of horizontal lines (stadia) can be scrolled together/apart to bracket a target, after which you read off the range shown alongside the most appropriate icon, be it a stag (170cm), boar (70cm) or hare (30cm). It’s not as fast or accurate as a laser rangefinder, of course, but because the Axion remembers your last setting, with a little prior calculation you can pre-set the lines to bracket a specific target at your maximum point-blank range (PBR). Thus, if your max PBR is 200m, and a fox is 50cm tall, pre-spacing the stadia for a boar at 280m will let you check at a glance whether Charlie is already in range, or if a stalk or a squeak is called for.
Staying with this button, a longer press takes you to the menu proper, which, with a few exceptions, such as amplification levels (again!) and colour palettes, is mostly made up of functions that are user-preference ‘toggles’, rather than situational enhancements. Among these preferential settings are image-smoothing (which reduces noise at the expense of some detail and is a good option for extended viewing), dead-pixel repair (which I’ve yet to need on any pulsar device), user mode (for tuning the image beyond the pre-sets), picture-in-picture (which permits zooming-in on the centre of the image while maintaining the full FOV in the main window), microphone (for recording video with or without audio), WiFi (for connecting to Pulsar’s Stream Vision 2 app), Wifi settings (where you can create a numerical password and select between 2.4GHz/5GHz network speeds), and calibration (where you can choose between automatic, semi-automatic and manual options). Recently added is a function that supplements the longstanding option to adjust the intensity of the display icons (1 to 10) with the ability to dim all the onscreen information at a stroke and is perfect for sustained low-light use.

There is always more
You can also select from eight colour palettes. I favour black-hot for daytime, white-hot for low light, red monochrome for full darkness, and red-hot to cut through thermal clutter in wooded areas. The sepia, violet, blue and rainbow options are also there for those who appreciate them. As you can see, I only tend to change the palette when the light or terrain changes, so having this option in the menu, rather than on a button (as the Chinese seem to prefer) suits me just fine.
Of course, as well as tuning the image using the menus, you can also optimise how the photons reach the sensor at one end, and your eye at the other. As you’d expect from Pulsar, there’s a fast (f1.2) and focusable (3m to infinity) germanium glass objective lens at the front, protected by a sturdy polymer fairing that’s ribbed for grip and complemented by a tethered cover that attaches magnetically to the monocular’s hand strap during viewing. Meanwhile, at the rear, the colour 640x480 AMOLED display screen is crisply and evenly magnified within a focusable eyepiece encompassed by a soft rubber flange for comfort and reduced light leakage. Typically, the tension on both focusing controls is just right for making precise adjustments that stay where you left them.
You can save and share what you see, too, because the Axion Compact will capture still images (with a short press of the Image/Down button), and video (with a longer press). In video mode, further short presses will pause and resume recording. Images are saved (in JPG or MP4 format) at 960x600px to the Compact’s 64GB on-board memory, from where they can be transferred via WiFi to Stream Vision 2, or via USB, using the C-type port tucked under a rubber cover on the left-hand side of the housing. Stream Vision can also be used for live viewing, and as a comprehensive remote control, at which point the Axion’s discreet ¼” tripod mount comes into its own.
The Compact is powered by Pulsar’s APS3 battery pack. This can be recharged in situ via the aforementioned USB port, or you can pop it out with a quick press on the front of the housing and use a twin-station APS2/APS3 charging dock, available separately for £44.95. Spare batteries are £39.95, but with a run-time of seven hours in the Compact, in-situ charging may be all you need, especially since the remaining charge is monitored in the display as a precise percentage, rather than as a basic three-bar icon. Simply charging in the car when driving to or from my hunting ground worked just fine for me.
When out in the field, I initially used the supplied hand strap, which can be fitted on either side of the monocular, but later moved over to a neck strap, as I like to be able to ‘drop everything’ when a shot presents itself. Neck straps are extra (£15.95) and worth having, but the Compact does come with a neat zip-up pouch, which is great for protecting it in transit.

Conclusion
The Axion Compact is truly handy, has great ergonomics and intuitive controls, delivers impressive performance in the field, boasts unequalled build quality and support, and does all that for less than the cost of its predecessor. That’ll do!

Contact:
Thomas Jacks -

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