Review - Efest 16340 IMR Test

With my collection of 16340 getting a little on the old side ( half a decade ) , I decided it was time to buy some new batteries . Trolling ebay I came across the Efest batteries , and I thought , why not ! The following chart is a 0.5A discharge , the two batteries were each charged and discharged three times .

After the 0.5A discharge , I put each battery through a 1A discharge resulting in :

Batt 1 - 511mAh

Batt 2 - 527mAh

And then I decided to try a 0.2A discharge :

Batt 1 - 494mAh

Batt 2 - 498mAh

Then it was time for a discharge test for current capability , and using one of my hot little 16340 XM-L mods :

Batt 1 - 1.63A

Batt 2 - 1.85A

Nitecore 16340 - 1.35A

AW 16340 - 1.4A

Solarforce 16340 - 1.54A

Lets see , the batteries are obviously not well matched , so if you plan on using them in a dual battery set up , you may wish to buy more to find a pair that matches Capacity and current a lot closer than this pair . ( Just saying ) In a single battery light , this disparity in performance is not an issue as both outperformed the other batteries by quite a margin .

Also note the battery has printed on it 700mAh Capacity ? Why would they want to do that , it just means the batteries are around 25% shy of claimed capacity ! If only they had 550mAh or something printed on the label , I could say bravo for trying to be honest . Unfortunately this tendency to exaggerate capacity on the label of the battery is getting out of hand , and to see what is supposedly a reputable company (?) getting on the " Lets print what we want on the label " bandwagon , is not a good sign at all .

For single battery applications , these batteries might be worth while looking at , but from this sample pair , I would not recommend them for Multi battery applications unless the user was prepared to test and match the batteries .

So :

Not well matched

Capacity 25% shy of claims

Outperform other 16340

No protection circuit ( a + for me )

Just over 500mAh capacity ( Average for 16340 )

Interesting but definitely not a high current battery

Sad that both batteries were so different in mAh ratings…not good!

Capacity inflation and current inflation seems to be the norm these days for LI-ion batteries. Even AW has begun to do a little of this.

I don’t know if this cell is genuine. I do not see a 700mah v2 16340 listed on Efest’s site.

Which ebay seller did you buy from?

Looks geniune to me. Available from many legitimate vendors.

https://www.imrbatteries.com/blog/efest-certification/

The Efest website is a chaotic mess.