I’m just going to come out and admit this particular product is out of my depth of experience. I received a few sets of 18650 batteries from Prodna a while back. Obviously I use batteries all the time, so it’s not like I don’t know what to do with them.
The problem is that most battery reviews I’ve read have charts and all kinds of very technical test results. I am not an engineer, nor do I have a lab full of cool testing stuff. I have a multimeter I barely know how to use.
Therefore, you can assume my review of the Prodna batteries is not going to be technical in the least. Instead, I’ve been using these batteries pretty much exclusively for the past couple months so I’ll share my take as a lay person instead.
I haven’t really seen these batteries in any vape shops, but they do seem to have a wholesale contact form. For normal folks, you can order the batteries direct on their website.
Prodna 18650s come in four varieties, each one comes in a different color to make it easy to tell which is which:
- Yellow: 35 Amp 3500 mAh
- Purple: 40 Amp 2500 mAh
- Red: 40 Amp 3000 mAh
- Black :50 Amp 3100 mAh
As far as the packaging and wraps on the batteries themselves, everything is very well done. The batteries are packed two to a box with a foam insert to keep them separated in transit.
The batteries themselves are flat-top batteries. The positive end has a black band around the top for quick identification. This doesn’t quite work on the black batteries for obvious reasons. Fortunately, the sides of the battery cases also have a positive and negative marking. They even cleverly worked in a plus and minus sign into the logo on the batteries as well.
I didn’t run into any problems with the wrapping coming loose or developing rips, which I have certainly had with other batteries. This is definitely a good sign. I also didn’t have any crazy issues like overheating or venting, or else this would have been a totally different kind of article.
Performance-wise, even the lowest amperage battery of the bunch was sufficient to drive higher wattage vaping in dual battery devices. You may struggle a bit going crazy with a single battery vaporizer, but that’s what the highest-rated black battery is for.
Battery life is what I would expect from the mAh ratings on the batteries. In some ways the batteries seemed to hold out longer that other similarly rated batteries I’ve used in the past.
I have been pretty pleased with these batteries in the time I’ve had to use them. Price-wise they’re very attractive as well. The least expensive set starts at 6 dollars and goes up to $10.50 for the black batteries on the Prodna website.
