What Size mAh e-Cigarette Battery?

The size or capacity of an e-cig battery refers to how much power it can store which affects how long it can be used before it needs to be recharged.

When it comes to the traditional standard e-cig battery, you will normally find the more power it can hold, the larger it will physically be.

However, e-cig batteries now come in many forms. You may have seen people using all sorts of interesting-looking devices, these also need their power source and this will either be a built-in battery which you will never see, or a conventional-looking battery that's inserted into an ecig battery tube or box shape device (usually referred to as mods).

Regardless of how the battery or power source may appear, when you see a number and mAh after it, it's giving you an indication as to the typical amount of power it can hold. This principal is similar to that of a fuel tank in a car, the bigger the tank, the further you can drive.

This is a guide to typical use for different mAh STANDARD/TRADITIONAL e-cig batteries:

Typical use between charges

• 650mAh - 4-6 hours
• 900mAh - 7-9 hours
• 1000mAh - 10-12 hours
• 1650mAh - 14-16 hours
• 2200mAh - 18-22 hours

If you're a very heavy user your battery will drain faster and where a battery might typically last 8 hours, it may only last 4 hours.

More complex devices, such as batteries or mods with multiple user features, LED displays and different modes, such as temperature control, and high output devices, will use more power than a standard ecig battery.

If you're an experienced vaper and need something to last while you're out and about, consider a battery mod as they usually have much longer-lasting batteries, although they're bigger and heavier, and more expensive to buy.

New starters are better off looking at a starter kit and keeping an eye out for those that come with two batteries, if necessary, or ensure you can get a spare if that's important to you.

650mAh v 900 mAh - what's the difference?

The mAh stands for milli Ampere hour or milli Amp hour. It&' the measure of a battery's energy storage capacity.

Imagine your battery as a fuel tank in a car, the mAh is the measure of how much fuel the battery can hold. The higher mAh rating the more fuel the battery can store inside. The more fuel, the longer the journey lasts.

And to put it another way, it’s how many puffs you can take before the battery needs to be recharged.

Slender e-cigarettes have batteries ranging anything from 90mAh to 360mAh and these smaller batteries need to be recharged more often. These are becoming outdated as time passes.

In order to make a meaningful comparison, it’s important to compare mAh ratings of similar batteries. For example, there’s no point comparing an alkaline battery to a NiMH (nickel-metal hydride cell) battery. So assume we are talking about batteries that are similar, in this case lithium-ion e-cig batteries.

Lithium-ion batteries are used in e-cigarettes because they have good energy density and they’re slow to lose their charge when they’re not in use.

So we know that the mAh relates to the amount of fuel a battery can store, so the higher the number, ie 650mAh, 900mAh, 1100mAh, etc, we know that these batteries will last longer because they can store more energy.

Do bigger batteries produce more vapour?

The vapour is dependent on the blend of e-liquid, the battery output and the coil. A standard 650mAh or 1600mAh battery will exert the same amount of power (if they have the same power output) and the vapour isn't affected. It just means the 1600mAh battery will last longer before it needs to be recharged.

If, however, the 650mAh battery's output is 4.2V and the 1600mAh is outputting 4.8V, then there will usually be more heat created and more vapour.