In that flashlight and with that charger, a protected is not necessary.
Protected are more expensive than common ones.
Protected ones are no better than common ones.
Under a protection they can put a fake battery.
Buy a good brand from a trusted supplier.
Good brands … Sanyo, Panasonic, Samsung, LG, Sony …
It is not recommended, with some exceptions, ebay or aliexpress.
In Europe, I never bought but it has a good reputation, nkon.nl
Find one that is accessible to you and publish the link, we will help you.
Some batteries I’m looking at:
Sanyo NCR18650GA, Panasonic NCR18650B, Sony US18650 VTC6
A couple of Samsung (25R, 30Q) were also among my choices but after so many reports about fake ones, I’m afraid to buy them. I think I’ll go for the Sanyo.
There’s another online store who claims that their batteries are 100% genuine and they’re providing (they say so) certification about it. Such a thing does exist? A battery genuineness certificate? The funny thing is that I found a customer’s review saying he bought a fake 30Q from this store, lol…
I contacted him and asked him about that “certification”. He sent me a document which contains detailed technical specifications and guidelines about safe use, charging, storage of the battery. A user’s manual actually, which doesn’t prove in any way the authenticity of the product.
I’ve bought a couple of battery orders from illumn in the past year, the last one a few months ago. Shipping was always around $15 or $16 to Canada. Have they recently jacked up the price that much? If so, it’s probably not worth buying there again. That $2 surplus per cell (I usually order 8 cells), suddenly jumps to $5 per cell!
One last thing and plz correct me if I’m wrong. Both button and flat top can be used in s2+ but a button top would have more tightest fit. Any other difference?
I’m going to use that flashlight in my bike. Especially for bike use, wouldn’t be better to have that tightest fit (so less movement of battery inside the flashlight)?