Vapcell F56 5600mAh batteries, almost top of the line in 21700 size

Not long ago, I mentioned that some interesting batteries were coming, and now it’s time for what I think is the most interesting one: batteries with almost the highest capacity in the 21700 form factor.

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Vapcell actually had batteries with a claimed capacity of 5800mAh on its website, but we’ll talk about that at the end of the review. For now, let’s see what arrived.
The batteries come in a branded box and are also wrapped in protective film.


Specifications from the product page on the Vapcell website
Model: F56
Size: 21.6±0.2 * 71.0±0.3mm
Typical Capacity: 5600mAh (0.2C discharge)
Min capacity: 5450mAh (0.2C discharge)
Nominal voltage: 3.60V
Max Continuous Discharge Current: 12.5A
End-of-charge voltage: 4.20V
End-of-discharge Voltage: 2.5V
Weight: 74g ( Appr)
Internal resistance: 16mΩ ( Appr) （AC 1kHz）
Standard Charge: 2000mA,CCCV 100mA cut-off
Quick Charge Current: 3500mA

The batteries are yellow, with flat positive and negative terminals. Brief specifications are printed on the casing.


Dimensions and weight.


They arrived at about 30% charge. The first cycle showed a capacity of around 5750–5850mAh, clearly more than claimed. At one point I even thought my charger had broken, since discharging at 1A took more than 6 hours...


These batteries are very “delicate,” so their nominal charging current is just 2A, with a maximum of 3.5A.
At the nominal current, charging takes more than three hours. I have to say, this got pretty annoying during testing: with 12 cycles on two batteries, charging alone took about 40 hours.


Charging at almost twice the current doesn’t speed things up all that much, but you can see that the CV phase takes a long time in this mode. I’d also like to point out the interesting charging curve during the CV phase: it’s usually curved, but here the current decreases linearly for most of the time.


Vapcell’s website has test graphs for this battery at currents up to 20A. That’s useful information, but I’ll only test it up to the specified limit of 12.5A. I can say that the information on the website is quite reliable, especially since they use the same battery tester I do.


I tested at 0.2, 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2C, as well as 12.5A.
What can I say? The battery was rated at 5600mAh, but it delivered more than 5700! I should note, though, that at just 0.5C the delivered capacity drops below 5600, so that’s worth keeping in mind when using it.


Temperature at 8.4, 11.2, and 12.5A. In my opinion, everything looks excellent.


The second battery’s test results are practically identical to the first one’s.



I measured the remaining capacity after discharging at 12.5A just in case, since this isn’t all that meaningful for high-capacity batteries. On the next discharge at 0.2C, they delivered another 116 and 135 mAh


The consistency of their characteristics is beyond question here—practically perfect.


I consider an impedance of 13 mΩ excellent, especially given that these are high-capacity cells.


It would be interesting to compare them with other 21700 batteries. Someone at Vapcell has already done that on their website, but in a very abbreviated form.
First, they compared them with some 18650, but I consider that test completely useless since the form factors are different. The comparison with the Samsung 50G is more interesting, though, and I can check that myself.


The comparison with the LG M58 is much more interesting. I haven't had any of these cells before, and you can see that at 15 A they perform almost identically.


I have plenty of test results for 5000 mAh batteries and a couple for 5200 mAh batteries, so those are the only ones I can compare against. So far, 5600 is the highest capacity I've seen.
The comparison included:
1. The batteries under review (red)
2. INR21700M52V (orange) - review
3. Samsung INR21700-50E (yellow) - review
4. LG INR21700-M50T (green) - review
5. Samsung INR21700-50G (light blue) - review
6. Vapcell 21700 T50 (blue) - review
7. Vapcell F52 21700 (purple) - review
8. Vapcell G50 21700 (pink) - review
9. Vapcell P50 21700 (black) - review

There are a lot of competitors, so I split the comparisons into groups: 0.2C, 1C, and maximum rated current. Keep in mind that 1C means 4.85 A for some cells, for example, but 5.6 A for the ones under review. The same goes for maximum current: it's around 14.5–15 A for most of them, but 12.5 A here.

At 0.2C, the Vapcell F56 simply blew everyone else away. There's nothing to compare here.


At 1C, the picture changed a little—but only a little.


At maximum current, a couple of batteries fell to the bottom of the graph, which means they're simply overloaded. I'm talking about the Samsung 50E and LG M50T.
Interestingly, though, a couple of batteries rose to the top. One is the relatively high-current Vapcell T50, based on a Samsung INR21700-50S cell. The other is the Vapcell F56 under review, which pulls noticeably ahead.


I was curious about which cells are inside these F56 batteries, so I started digging around online. Unfortunately, the only ones I found were LG INR21700-M58T cells, which, incidentally, are rated at 5570 mAh and have been listed on NKON.
Vapcell's website also has a graph comparing their F58 with an LG cell.


A forum helped me find information about the LG cells. The discussion started with the Vapcell F58, then moved on to the LG M58T.
I also found photos of the LG INR21700-M58T there. They were pulled from a battery pack, but it was already clear that these were definitely different cells from the ones used in the F56. That's where I stopped looking for now.



Interestingly, the batteries look a little different in the photos on the NKON store page.


Of course, you might ask: so what if the capacity is higher? It's not several times higher, just a little. Well, it depends how you look at it. For a single battery, sure, it's not much. But compare it with a pack of 16 LG M50LT cells, which I use in my power banks: at a 0.2C discharge rate, they'll deliver not 285 Wh but a full 325 Wh. And an extra 40 Wh is no small thing.
By the way, does anyone know what cells are used in the DJI Mavic 3 battery? Could they be 21700s?

Conclusions.
In my opinion, these batteries are simply excellent: capacity above the rating, good current delivery, and excellent consistency. I honestly can't think of anything to criticize—except maybe the price. But even the price can be justified sometimes, when you need maximum capacity at any cost. For example, in a high-capacity power bank where weight matters, or in a quadcopter, where an extra 15% capacity means 5–6 more minutes of flight time.

All in all, I liked them. It's hard to find anything bad to say. If you need high capacity, I recommend them.
That's all for today. I hope you found this useful, and thanks for reading.