The only thing special about LiPo, (Which is still Lithium Ion L.I.PO), is that the charge requires a heat-monitor and load-sense. As opposed to just blind charge.
NiCa, Can be charged with constant amps/volts.
MiMh, Requires a tapered charge, high V and high A, then low V an low A. Load monitored.
LiIon (The rechargeable kind), Has similar requirements as NiMh, except the voltage can be constant, with amps that taper as it fills.
LiPo (The plastic-film battery), Requires heat-sense charge, with the NiMh charge, and load monitoring. Optionally using a constant voltage. (The battery will melt or explode because the reaction surface area is 10x that of a standard LiIon battery with rolled plates.)
LiPo can discharge faster, only if the heat is monitored. Without heat monitoring, they catch fire. (As per the news stories with burning laptops.) LiIon can also catch fire, but usually only when it is rapid-charged, and the charger continues to trickle-charge the full battery. Being at 5v, it is charged with 5.2v or more. If the battery is not removed, or the power not shunted to a resistor, it will try to raise the voltage to 5.2v, while it dumps 0.0000001mA into the battery. (Most can handle it, but a battery which is nearly dead, will only charge to 4.8v, so 5.2v will cause it to stay pumping 0.5mA not 0.0000001mA, and it will never shunt-off. This is where the load-sensor comes into play, as it tries to drain the battery to that same shunt, and sees what the new voltage level is, after the load. If the load drops below 0.2v from the last value, it is charged and only needs a trickle or needs to be off-shunted. If it drops more than 0.2v from the last value, it needs the larger amp cycle no matter what the actual voltage is at.)
The new voltage regulator chips can produce 12v from as little as 1.2v, and as high as 48v. The result is higher amps at lower voltages, and lower amps at higher voltages. A watt is a watt, no matter what voltage it is running at.
1w @ 1.2v = 0.8333a (Least efficient)
1w @ 12v = 0.0833a
1w @ 48v = 0.0208a (More efficient)
EG, saying a battery has XXXXmAh, is nothing, if you don't know the voltage.
1000mAh @ 1v = 500mAh @ 2v = 250mAh @ 4v = 125mAh @8v
It also depends if the batteries are in series or parallel. In Parallel, the voltage increases, but the mAh is the mAh of one battery, not 2x the mAh. In Series, the mAh doubles, but the voltage is the same. (You can also draw twice as many amps as one battery, since there are two paths, or half the load resistance.)
The battery I see being used in our cigs are around 250mAh @ 4v, which is equivalent to a 1.4v standard NiMh battery with 714mAh. (270mAh @ 5v fresh, quickly tapers to around ~4v, providing 250mAh of usable regulated power.)
So, if one LiIon 250mAh @ 4v = 4 hours of puffs, 2 hours to charge...
3x (Parallel) NiMh 1.4v @ 1200mAh = 4.2v @ 1200mAh, or 19.2 hours of puffs, but can charge in 4 hours, in series chargers.
I am not sure of the total lengths of the puffs, and the consumed actual wattage of the element, but I imagine it is around 0.02w @ 4v = 0.005Ah or 5mAh or 0.083mAsec
0.083mAsec X 10 seconds per puff = 0.83mA
250mAh / 0.83mA = 300 puffs per charge {Sounds familiar}
Only 150 puffs with 20 second puffs
Only 100 puffs with 30 second puffs, or purge-puffs.
1200mAh / 0.83mA = 1446 puffs per charge {That is a lot of puffs} 4.82x more puffs.
(Note: Most of that was just for example, not actual values, except where noted, for my device. None of those formulas take into account that the resistance increases as the element heats, and amperage decreases as the battery heats-up under load, and voltage drops.)
Also note, you don't NEED a $50.00 charger... You just paid $50.00 for a charger. The microchip that charges any LiPo battery is $1.50, and the power-supply that can handle 1.2w (10a @ 12v), costs $5.00 at radio-shack. Complete monitored chargers sell for as little as $20.00 without anything fancy involved. (One chip now charges all NiCad, NiMh, LiIon, LiPo, and Lead-Acid batteries.) You obviously have a superior charger, from when this technology was rather new. Overkill for small batteries. Laptop chargers are only $30.00 brand new. I imagine yours does a super-fast charge, and has multiple charge rates. New chargers auto-detect, and have multi-charge rates that they auto-select.
Here are some resources...
Lithium-ion battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lithium-ion polymer battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://www.rchelisite.com/lipo_battery_charging_and_safety_guide.php
How to charge Nickel Metal Hydride Batteries.
How to charge nickel cadmium batteries
So, anyone got an extra submarine battery laying around?
Guess you dont fly it 
