It,s the same with all cheap protected cells Ive tested once Ive removed the protection they read lower internal resistance and a slight gain in mAh.
I brought them from IO the early protected ones and got poor results, I'm told the new ones with better PCB,s are good but i have not brought any more.
Here is the link to the old thread.
https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/4557
My testing did not start till post #64 and you can see how much a bad or poor PCB protection circuit will affect performance. In case you don't want to read through it all ill post some of my results.
My tests before i removed the protection PCB,s
Cell A internal resistance 127 milliohms
Cell B internal resistance 129 milliohms
For the internal resistance test's you need to take into account the magnets i used on my charge leads and my soldering.
Cell A 3 amp discharge from 4.18 volt to 3.013 volt i got 1229 mAh.
Cell B discharged from 4.18v to 3.194 volt at 3 amps I was not even able to extract more the 1000 mAh.
With the bad PCB protection units removed i got
Cell A Internal resistance 103 milliohms
Cell B Internal resistance 98 milliohms
For the internal resistance test's you need to take into account the magnets i used on my charge leads and my soldering.
discharged from 4.18 volt to 3 volt @ 3amp 2485 mAh (averaged out over the two cells)
discharged at (1C) 3.1 amp to 2.5 volt 2876 mAh (averaged out over the two cells)
discharged at (2C) 6.2 amp discharge from 4.16 to 2.5 volt i got 2876 mAh
discharged from 4.15 volt to 2.5 volt at 0.5 amps 3020 mAh
discharged from 4.163 volt to 3 volt at 0.2 amps 3033 mAh
So in light current draw like 0.2, 0.5 amps there is not much difference from a discharging cut off between 3 volt and 2.5 volt, but at higher draw like 3 amp there is a difference thats is noticeable. Good cells if you get the genuine ones and or with good pcb's with at lest 2 mosfets.