TrustFire TF 16340 880 mAh, or when the result isn't what you expect.

This time I decided to experiment again with batteries in a less common size. Read on to find out what I got (and didn’t get) in the end.

Before ordering these batteries, I had an idea of what to use them for. I was even starting to plan a review, since although TrustFire batteries aren’t exactly top of the line, they’re usually decent mid-range batteries.

But I’ll get to the testing and results a little later. First, the usual part of the review.
Please don’t judge the packaging photo too harshly. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you look at it—there won’t be many photos.
They arrived in a regular padded envelope via Singapore Post. I can’t say exactly how long delivery took, but it was about a month.


Inside the bubble wrap was a small zip-lock bag.


The batteries are packaged in pairs.
There’s a hologram and the usual warnings—in other words, the standard stuff printed on every battery: don’t play football with it, don’t eat it, and so on.


There’s no protection circuit. The price more or less hints that you shouldn’t expect one, either.
Still, I have no complaints about the appearance; everything looks neat and well made.


A standard size check.
Length: 33.8 mm.
For anyone who’s wondering, I didn’t short-circuit the batteries with the calipers :)


The diameter is a little larger, but I don’t think it’s a problem.
16.4 mm.


And of course, we have to weigh them.
Yes, I know this isn’t an indicator of battery quality, but if a battery weighs next to nothing to begin with, you probably shouldn’t expect it to have a high capacity.
The four batteries weighed 72 grams in total, so each one weighs 18 grams.


Now for the main question: what do we actually have here?
As last time, the measurements were taken with a professional VenconUBA battery analyzer. If you’re interested, you can find links to its description in my previous review of 18650 batteries. Those batteries were also made under the TrustFire name.

I labeled the batteries and started testing them.
And that’s when the trouble began.

I don't see any point in posting the full test report (I can email it if you really need it); the pictures and the device's brief conclusion make everything clear.

All in all, my ideas for a review using these batteries fell apart because of their rather poor quality. No, these batteries will probably still feature in one of my reviews, and I'll find a use for them, but they'll be supporting players, and definitely not all of them.
What surprised me was that each pair had one defective battery.
I probably won't use the fourth one, the one that seems to have come back to life, because I'm not sure it's working properly.
I think there's still hope for the two that passed the test, even at 70% capacity. I won't load them with high current, so they should be fine.

This product was provided free of charge by the chinabuye store for testing and review.

I hope this information will be useful to readers.