Everything is exactly the same 
aah, shit, I forgot to mention that I modded one of the lights so it now uses the XM-L2. My humble appologies for the confusion :(. To ensure that the previous discussion still makes sense I decided to explain it again in this post:
I’ve got two zoomable 1×18650 ebay flashlights which are exactly the same. When zoomed to the max, the pattern of the emitter looks like a XP-G2, according to Cree, Luminus, Seoul … LED comparison. The XP-G2 is rated for 1.5A and a XML-U3 is rated for 3A. In on of the lights I replaced the emitter with a XML-U3 from fasttech. What’s really odd now is that both flashlights appear to have the same brightness, but the modded one with the XML-U3 get’s noticeably warm. This brings me to the conclusion that the led is probably driven at 2-3A. But as the XP-G2 is rated for 1.5A it should be the one which gets really hot, but it doesn’t. Also my modded one with XML-U3 should be brighter I guess
What am I missing here?