Folks, we started considering carrying JetBeam/Nitecore products and one of them is their 16340 and 14500 battery.
An as aside, this is our preferred battery list based on bang for buck, and by bang, I don’t mean explosive xxxxxFire 
18650 – 3100mAh Dark Matter (more on that another day)
18650 – 3100mAh XTAR (phasing out)
14500 – 750mAh AW
16340 – 650mAh AW
AA, AAA, C, D – Imedion
LiFePO4 16340 – 750mAh Tenergy (capacity no longer marked on cell)
Having said that, we are always looking for the best value batteries in terms of quality, capacity, size (!) when coming up with that list.
Why this post? So again, we purchased a bunch of items which also included Nitecore 16340 (650mAh) and 14500 (750mAh) battery. As usual, they are run through an XTAR WP2-II and tested on the venerable CBA III Pro. On the first runs, the batteries exceeded their rated capacity and actually took the crown. Having rerun the test on each battery 3 times and averaged, this is the result:
Nitecore 16340 650mAh = 668mAh
Nitecore 14500 750mAh = 782mAh
This is the first time I’ve actually seen batteries EXCEED their rated marking. Sure, you’re supposed to test batteries at 0.1C and so forth but our testing is less than optimal:
Charged fully and left to “trickle” (ok, so it doesn’t really trickle but left on the charger for 2-3 hours after green)
Rest for 1 hour and tests to 4.16v
Tested on CBA using 0.5A down to 2.75v
The discharge curve matched their AW counterparts and exceeded in capacity. The Nitecore also beat the AW in terms of sheer dollars.
There are only two things holding this back though. The batteries say “for high drain” so I’ll be testing them at 1A discharge as well — making it technically just under 2C test. The next thing is they are longer than AW by 1-2mm. In contrast, the XTAR 16340 are about 3mm longer, posing an issue AND average only about 460mAh with the same tests (bad, bad!).
So, has anyone else had these Nitecore for a while and can attest to the longevity of these cells? That’s the only other factor we don’t have to make a solid recommendation.