Cooking for 20 minutes at 200ºC, with 125ml of water in the bowl, chips were evenly cooked and had a nice crispy texture to the outside, while the inside remained soft and moist. Quite possibly, this is the best that we’ve seen any air fryer perform. Frozen hash browns and grilling rump steak were also cooked to perfection. Pressure cooking works well, too, reducing the amount of time it takes to cook a lot of food. It works brilliantly, too. Mid-week we made halloumi kebabs and rice in one pot, in just 15 minutes. That’s good going, and there’s very little mess at the end. General air fryer foods (chips, hash browns, burgers and the like) were cooked exceptionally well, although we did have to add a bit of cooking time beyond the recommend to some food types. Using the grill, we found that its heat was slightly uneven, but moving food around manually when turning it was enough to overcome this problem. The Tower Vortex 7-in-1 Air Fryer with Steamer is nice and easy to use too, with the mode buttons on the front panel proving to be self-explanatory. The only thing you need to remember is to put water in the detachable steam tank, located on the top of the machine. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{

Air fryers are brilliant but one of the biggest issues with them is that you can usually only cook at one temperature or setting at a time. Not so with the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone 7.6L Air Fryer, which brings you two individually controlled cooking zones, with their own pull out drawer. It’s quite a beast, but if you use an air fryer all of the time, cook large portions (or for lots of people) and want quality results each time, then there’s nothing better than this model. We also look at other important factors like ease of use and key features. The number of drawers and how much they can hold are crucial details for those cooking for large households, as is the physical size of the appliance for anyone frying with limited counter space. That’s hugely flexible, and we found that this air fryer made short work of all dinners, letting us cook two different parts of the dinner to finish at the same time, or just increase the total capacity for one part. Testing, we found that chips came out perfectly, and frozen food was dealt with brilliantly. Persevere and this air fryer can deliver some quality results: crispy chips and nicely browned sausages, not to mention faster cooking times and better results for frozen essentials. With a single 5-litre drawer, there’s a good amount of space for cooking for families, too.

As with the previous model, you can use just a single drawer, or use each drawer independently, synchronised (individual settings, but the air fryer will get both of your selected programmes to end at the same time or matched with the same settings.

With a higher-than-average temperature option of 230C, rather than the usual 200C, the Sage the Smart Oven Air Fry can cook food faster than many other air fryers, although it does take a bit longer to heat up. This sizeable cooker can air fry, grill, pressure cook, steam and more. Results across the board are fantastic, but you’ll need to ask yourself whether you realistically need this much cooking space and number of functions before you buy it.

How we tested

Scottish Highlands & Islands postcodes: AB, FK, HS, IV, KA, KW, PA, PH, ZE, LL58-LL78, IM, TR, PO30-41