Before I ordered my Keeppowers from Illumn, I ordered two from Aliexpress as I was not aware Illumn ships so reasonably to Canada. Anyway, I have my Illumn bought 26650's to compare to the Aliexpress ones today and I am pretty sure the Aliexpress ones are fake.
When they arrived today, I noticed the silver color on the label was duller, it just did not look right. Then I noticed under the positive cap is very different as well. Then I noticed the "CE RoHS" on them were not the official design as I remember last year reading about fake CE RoHS having the "C" and the "E" too far apart, and that is a sure sign of fakes.
Keeppower does change their labels etc, and of course they could change their top terminals any time they feel like it, but the CE RoHS logo I think is the first giveaway. What do you think?
For that matter Keeppower is a knock off brand. KP doesn’t manufacture cells, they buy them, re-wrap them, add protection circuits, and print labels to label them.
I’d say the are legit. Or as legit as can be. Efest, EVVA, Orbtronic, etc… are all re-wrap companies.
Yes I know they don't, but I doubt they are going to sell them with fake CE RoHS text on the label. Maybe I could be wrong, but I clearly remember reading if the C and E are too far apart on any product with a label like that, then they are 100% fake, no questions asked.
C and E has to be far apart in a real CE logo. If you make the C into a circle the line has to exactly overlay the back of the E.
I.e. the Aliexpress version looks like the correct CE logo.
The label is probably designed by some marketing people that do not know the rules on how a CE mark must look. A new version may be corrected because somebody that do know told them to fix it.
But next time a new designer is making the label, the problem may be back.
I am not a battery expert but I would say they are both “real” Keeppower batteries, the only difference is that the ALIX cell is the newest with the 3 symbols after the “RoHS and the correct CE mark.
Inside EU there is no legal China Export mark, it is a wrongly designed CE mark (The rules says something about it being illegal to use marks that can be confused with CE marks).
They might just be different batches. Keeppower are known to change specifications and cells wrapped over time, just like Efest. In fact I’m aware of 4 different versions of the protected 5200mAh battery - longer, shorter, non raised top, and higher current protection.