Thank you HKJ, for your testing and for providing us with invaluable information.
It’s very interesting to see how the NCR18650BL outperforms the NCR18650B. But why would they (Sanyo=Panasonic) improve their flagship and market it under their low budget brand? Beats me.
Word has it the NCR18650BL is of the same basic chemistry (LiNiCoAl) as the NCR18650B but they must have done some changes resulting in much less voltage sag. Even the protected version of Enerpower has a respectable discharge curve.
And the NCR18650BL seems to be a good replacement for a lot of cell types up to 5A, be it LiNiCoAl (NCR18650B), LiCo (UR18650FM) or LiNiCoMn (INR18650-25R). The cell certainly got my attention.
.
.
.