Too bad their real capacity is basically the same as XTAR 2400mAh ones (and close to 2400mAh). Hi-MAX cells are pretty good and they score 2500-2600mAh regularly.
As long as it is decent, capacity is not the most important characteristic of a battery to me. dthrckt spelled it out nicely in his post. I do have a few Xtars and a lot of the HI-MAX and they are also swell batteries. They will last longer but cant put it out like the panasonics. Different animals.
i know its weird but, if you have a japanese laptop (such as toshiba) demount its battery and buy a new cheap battery from ebay. Ok. i know all laptop batteries are chinese made but, at least from toshibas 18650' s from batteries comes as japanese made (mines are CGR18650CE). So, most ebay batteries between 20-35$. And by this replacement you will have 6 unprotected Japanese 18650's for 20-35 USD. My laptop is Toshiba Satellite L505 (All A200 series are competible) and price for replacement 5200 MA battery is 27$. (Also there is a 30$ option in DinoDirect). I was using Trustfire flames as 18650. My laptop battery couldn't holding charge anymore. So, i demounted laptop battery to valuate its 18650's. And, when i tested them against trustfire flames (short protected ones from DX bought 5 months ago) runtimes are almost same. Thus, if you demount your laptop battery when its usefull, i guess it will be as affective as Panasonic unprotected NCR's. At least, this what i will do in the future :)
That's how I feel about the XTAR's. I don't require the best capacity when I know the cell and protection are over all good quality. So the Panasonic cells in general can handle higher draw? Interesting..
Nope, not in general - but that particular model is some kind of hybrid between LiCo and LiMn, handling 5C discharge and having capacity bit higher than LiMn (higher than LiCo’s typical 2C and lower than LiMn’s typical 10C)
I dont know if this is how it works but if the pack has 6 cells and is listed at 5200mAh, would that mean that each cell is 866mAh? Doesnt sound right.
It is listed as 10.8V. I cant figure how that voltage is arrived at with 3.7 to 4.2V cells. Maybe 2 in series and 4 parallel? This battery is also listed as 4400mAh. Does that mean each cell is 733mAh?
I have ripped a few packs apart and have always found Japanese cells of good quality. I would just like to be able to figure out which packs have a good chance of giving up some good cells for the price.
the cgr18650ch not only handle higher draw - the lower resistance gives me higher tailcap readings in almost all of my lights - vs every other kind of cell I have (UF, TF flame, xtar, and (unprotected) laptop cells from samsung, sony and panasonic)
generally, I'll trade brightness for a couple minutes of runtime ;)