>>>>>>This is why I asked whether the Samsung in the pack is 3.7 or 4.3.
Fastech has a bunch of products that seem exactly the same but one will be like two cents more than the other, so I didn’t pay much attention to their specs until you just brought ’em up. I just assumed that it was one of those deals. But they are definitely NOT the 3000mah purples.
I was just reading a Samsung white paper on their li-ion batteries. I’ll see if I can find it, but first off, these cells are definitely the 2.8 amp ones. Wrapper says: ICR18650-28A SAMSUNG SDI 954.
Here is the Samsung white paper.
http://www.samsungsdi.com/battery/cylindrical-rechargeable-battery.jsp
Unless I am reading this wrong, which wouldn’t be the first time, ALL 28A Samsungs have a top voltage of 4.3v; 2600s are 4.2v and 3000mah Samsungs (which say “30A” instead of “28A” on the wrapper) are 4.35 volts.
You’ll also note the 2800s and 3000s also have a “safety functional layer,” which is explained here:
http://www.sneresearch.com/eng/info/show.php?c_id=4872&pg=10&s_sort=&sub_cat=&s_type=&s_word=
That explanation is from a third party I believe. I have been unable to find an explanation from Samsung about what the layer actually does, but I have been busy in the last couple days and haven’t spent more than 15 minutes on digging up the poop on the SFL.
As for the color, blue versus purple …. Mine have a purplish tinge to them and are not what I would call a straight light powder blue. They could be called blue I suppose. In any case, in the ones I have seen, the color for the 3000mah is exactly the same as the 2800mah … At least to my eyes there is no difference. But then, maybe there are slight differences in color between batches. I know my Sanyo “purple ring” pack pulls are definitely an orangey color, whereas the Fasttech ones are a more traditional reddish Sanyo color.
I am in NO WAY saying that FT sells fake anything, but in almost all cases I would say the chances of pack pulls from a large compnay like Acer are 99.99% likely the “real” thing, and not a duped label wrapped around some Chinese fakery. This is one big reason I like NEW pack pulls better than buying them from any online source as single batteries. On the other hand, these could have been sitting in an uncooled truck container in the Gobi desert for the past year. Of course, the same could be true of any 18650s bought singly too. So just knowing that the battery isn’t counterfeit doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re home free in the condition department.
Hope this helps.