so that’s 506mA at 1.5V. Adjust that up to 3.6V - 506 / (3.6 / 1.5) = 210.8mAh
So a 3500mAh 18650 has the same amount of power as 16.6 duracell AAs at 1A output. That’s staggering. It does halve to 8.3 AAs at 0.5A current but even still.
negev, as xxo already used, the comparison for total energy of a battery is not amp-hours but watt-hours. This is calculated by multiplying the capacity in amp-hours by the nominal voltage of the battery. So for a 3500 mAh (=3.5 Ah) 18650, we multiply by 3.6 (or 3.7 for some cheeky manufacturers) for a value of 12.6 rated watt-hours. Of course xxo referred to HKJ’s test (and at a specific discharge current, too!) so the value is different, but perhaps better since it’s based on an actual test rather than rated capacity.
If we were to compare the amount of energy the cells are able to deliver in bursts, the 18650s pull even further ahead! Check 10, 15, or even 20 amp discharge curves for 18650s (maybe 30Q or VTC6). If you want to be more generous to AAs you could use Energizer Lithium or Eneloop NiMh to compare.
First of all, you are speaking about energy, not power.
Alkaline cells, along with any sort of expendable cells, are not designed for heavy loads.
And this calculation, while seemingly valid is far from correct. This is because you are considering “nominal” voltages, and nominal voltages are sort of average voltage values at typical loads. A high energy 18650 li-ion cell is expected to provide an average of 3.6V during discharge at 1A load current, maybe a little bit more. However, the expected typical load for an alkaline 14500 cell is much lower than 1A, a lot lower. This means that the average output voltage from a 14500 cell at 1A load is quite a bit lower. In fact, in your above review the average output voltage from the akaline cell down to 1V at 1A is just ≈1.12V.