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Reddit Reviews
I imagine “best” is a matter of trade offs and perspective, just like most things. Our Ninja XL has completely replaced our full-size oven, we love it and use it almost every day. There’s a really cheap air fryer in my office’s break room, I realize sometimes budget is the most important thing for some people, but I would never buy something like that one that rarely works, cooks uneven, and looking at the melting plastic parts it looks like it’s going to cause an emergency someday.
I have the Ninja XL and love it, however, you might want to consider just buying one you like with an extended warranty. Normally I avoid those like the plague but they make sense for something like this. Get a 4 year warranty on a $150 AF, knowing with high usage you will cash in.
I have a Cosori toaster oven style air fryer (some of my kids are all bougie and have Breville and the other a Ninja). All are terrific because they can all make a frozen pizza to perfection. Yes, longer pre-heat compared to a basket...by maybe a minute. My kid with the Ninja XL can make a full dinner with sides all at once for her and her husband, so that versatility is off the charts. I find with the mesh basket tray on my Cosori that I don't have to flip foods and they're much easier to space out to allow the circulation that is the science behind why an air fryer works.
I have the toaster oven style. Got the Ninja Flip one, loved it! Then I got the Ninja XL, love it even more! The Flip takes a bigger tray, but the XL takes two smaller trays. Flip would be great for a single person, the XL is great for my partner and I. I can't imagine trying to cook in one of those tiny basket type. They were never an option for me.
I switched to a Ninja ceramic one after my old basket started peeling. So far it’s held up better, but I baby it a lot. Curious if anyone’s had one last over a year without issues?
I have a dedicated air fryer and a ninja air fryer oven thing. The dedicated air fryer is much better at most things, especially meat like chicken thighs. The oven combo is good at veggies, reheating foods, frozen fries, etc. The oven is not better at those things, but the profile of the large rack makes it more convenient. I had a dedicated nice counter oven that quit. I thought the combo would be a good replacement. It's not really. It's not as good as an oven and not as good as an air fryer. But the combination is convenient since I still have the air fryer. The combo absolutely can't replace my dedicated ninja air fryer.
Cuisinart sucks just fyi, especially the digital air fryer ones. Ninja is good just they don’t seem to have a good size. The tilt one doesn’t have enough clearance to see or even put things like 1-1/2” steaks and the non-flip one is giant.
End of reviews
Rankings by Use Case
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