A one-step synthesis method is developed to prepare the Li[Ni0.5Co0.2Mn0.3]O2 (NCM 523) cathode with uniform tungsten-coating layer for lithium-ion battery. Such modified material shows similar properties with the bare NCM 523 in terms of the primary particles, secondary structure, and specific capacity. With W coating layer, the NCM 523 gives remarkable improvement in the long-term capacity retention in the half-cell testing, which is sharply inconsistent with the result from the full-battery tests, indicating a contradiction between the half-cell and full-battery tests in some case. After further investigations, such conflict between the half-cell and full-cell tests in evaluating the W-coating strategy is attributed to the dissolution of Li2WO4 layer in the electrolyte, which probably destroys the solid electrolyte interface (SEI) on the graphite anode and irreversibly consumes the active lithium ions for renovating SEI in full-cell testing. These results will benefit researchers in the area of lithium-ion batteries to fully understand the differences between the half-cell and full-cell testing, and develop the effective strategies for cathode modifications.