[Note 7 Questions & Answers] Aeltar:
Pardon me, but I'd like to correct a few details that you've overlooked.

1) I never said that one chemistry offers greater mAh, only that one offers a more stable voltage over its discharge cycle. This can be easily confirmed with a battery analyzer.

2) The li-ion pack they're using is clearly marked as 3.85v nominal. Most cells are 3.7v nominal, some are 3.6v, and some are 3.85v.

3) The voltage over discharge time is not linear; most cells operate at their nominal voltage for the largest portion of their discharge cycle, but 3.7v hardly equals 50% for most cells under most conditions.

4) Cells will not recharge in 'opposite polarity' if brought below 3.0v; the safety cutoff is actually 2.8v for most chemistries, and the safety issues with bringing them below that point is that the anode will begin to dissolve, which can cause an internal hard short if severe enough.

5) While li-po and li-ion typically offer the same nominal, maximal, and minimal voltages, the actual voltage over the discharge cycle is different between individual chemistries and constructions. Even identical chemistry (not just li-ion but IMR, also known as LiMn2O4) can differ in performance due to the material and architectural differences in the anode and cathode.

6) While the C rating is certainly relevant, I had assumed that Samsung would choose a cell that is of sufficiently high C rating to charge and discharge at and beyond typical amperage used in these phones.

7) You seem confused on the definition of Ah. Ah means amp-hours; one amp for one hour is one amp-hour. Similarly, joules are watt-seconds; one watt for one second is one joule, 60 watts for 1 second is 60 joules, and 1 watt for 60 seconds is 60 joules. However, energy is not transmitted at a rate of Ah, it is transmitted at a rate of A, or amps.

8) Desktop CPUs have little bearing on mobile CPUs. The technology used to power and construct them is entirely different. While it is extremely likely that mobile components are very low voltage, I don't have concrete knowledge regarding them, and I have no idea of the efficiency or regulation mechanism involved. I conjecture that they are very low-voltage, but while LP does indeed mean low power, power means wattage in the context of electrical engineering. You cannot extrapolate low-voltage from low-wattage due to Watt's law, which describes that you can create equivalent wattage using high voltage and low amperage or low voltage and high amperage (relatively speaking, of course, for both).

9) While mAh is mAh, the mAh given is at a specified load, typically 1C or 0.5C, and not at all indicative of performance at a higher load. There is almost no real-world use case in which you will actually be able to use the complete rated mAh of a cell, and the disparity is due to the voltage of the cell at differing loads at different points in the discharge cycle. It's trivially easy to get 1500mAh or less from a 3500mAh 18650, simply by drawing sufficient amperage. Li-Po typically offers a higher C rating for its size, compared to Li-ion which typically offers a higher capacity for its size. Because of this and the unknowns involved in power regulation inside the device, it's difficult to say whether the 3500mAh 3.85v li-ion cell used will be more or less efficient than a similarly sized and rated li-po cell, unless you happen to work with Samsung directly.