I used to have an actifry.
1. It can't replace an oven.
2. It makes a noise like a jet engine!
3. Everything is cooked in oil, even though it's only a small quantity.
4. A paddle stirs the food.
5. You're very limited in what you can cook in it.
6. I sold mine.

What I know is only by repute, rather than personal experience.

I've heard that if one is quite clever one can use these things in unexpected and amazing ways. I've heard you can take the paddle out and use it as a grill.

When you say "instead of an oven", what do you mean?

Unless there's an element of shared living quarters, in a great many American localities, dwellings are required to have an oven to get a certificate of occupancy. If you meant instead of a toaster oven, rather than an existing range or wall oven, then perhaps she'd like it. Generally these machines are meant for making French fries, however. A contact grill would be more versatile.

If it's senior housing or similar where there is no range/oven included, I'd think a countertop oven/toaster oven would be more useful. The best reviewed, as far as I can tell, are made by Breville. An electric skillet could also be very useful if there's no cooktop either.

Although people have fun with these low oil fry machines, from what I understand, they're delicate, hard to disassemble and hard to clean, break easily and have been known to catch fire. That's the T-Fal. The only thing I know about the reliability of the Phillips is that the people whose T-Fals fall apart think the Phillips isn't as well made.

Unless your mom eats fries on a daily basis or just delights in playing with gizmos, I'd steer her toward a more reliable, more versatile, easier to maintain appliance. People also make amazing things in rice cookers and crock pots, and a contact grill that opens flat can pretty well be used as a stove or oven, and if it has removable plates it's easy to wash--though it requires some strength..

Edit: It just occurred to me...Did she get this notion from watching infomercials? If so, see if you can get her hands on with a demonstration model before looking any farther. Things can look kind of magical on TV and be useless in person.

Edit 2: I just remembered Johnliu's thread about multicookers. I've never seen one in action so have no opinion at all on it, but he seemed pretty impressed. That might be a more practical version of what your mom wants.

This post was edited by plllog on Sun, Oct 19, 14 at 5:50

I know this is a really old post - but I have to say - WOW! How insulting!

I have replaced my oven with an air fryer and I didn't do it because of an "infomercial". In fact I've not been able to watch over the air TV for decades now (I stream only). So I haven't seen an infomercial of any sort for about 30 years or more.

Can I bake a wedding cake in my air fryer? A pie? Cookies? NO. And I don't care. I'm a type 2 diabetic. I don't do baking any more.

That's sort of the point for those of us who are older and on our own. We don't cook for crowds any more. More often than not we don't even cook for ourselves. Because our appetites are smaller, and our energy no longer flows from a seemingly endless font. AND, our memories? Not the best. With the air fryer, it shuts off by itself whether I remember I've got something cooking or not.

I make chops, burgers, wings, and various low carb fries in mine on a daily basis. My breakfast is 4 maple flavored sausage links - done to perfection without any attention from me in less than 15 mins (I like it REALLY CRISPY as in nearly burnt). Pork chop took half an hour - THICK pork chop, I didn't even have to turn it. Set it at about 350F and forgot about it. I didn't set anything on fire and the chop was done to perfection without me having to do ANYTHING. Next time I'll turn it all the way up to 400F and go for 20 mins.

I have the smaller Phillips and it admittedly doesn't cook all that much at once, but then I don't need it to. If I want a couple of egg rolls, it takes 10 mins in the air fryer and a fraction of the energy required to heat up that whole oven space. And before I had the air fryer, I would more often than not just skip eating altogether rather than wait for the big oven to heat up and then end up with 2 slightly soggy egg rolls anyway. The air fryer is handier, quicker, and egg rolls come out of it SUPER DUPER crispy, not soggy with hard spots like from the microwave. The air fryer is better even than the big oven.

And there is the Gowise 12.7 qt air fryer "oven" that gives you a lot more surface area. I'm about to move but after I am all moved, I'm getting one because I would like to be able to do air fryer fries along with my air fryer burgers/chops/whatever for a whole meal and you can't do that in the typical Phillips-type air fryer (not simultaneously anyway). At least not without a lot of intervention (as in having to shake or stir stuff to distribute it and expose more of the surface to the hot air).

The Gowise is like a teensy little oven with 3 teensy little shelves so you can just lay out a single layer on each shelf and still have plenty of air circulation. Should do for my purposes. As soon as I get settled, I'll be giving it a try anyway.

The Actifry, btw, is not a typical air fryer. I'm not sure it qualifies at all really. One of its drawbacks is that it goes only to a maximum temp of 338F - IF the temperature control is working properly, which they usually don't in cheap devices of this sort. Hence things don't come out of it nearly as crispy as actual air fryers that heat up to a more reasonable maximum temperature. The Phillips I have, for instance, maxes out at 400F, and the Gowise mentioned above tops out at 430F.

Oh, and btw - homes and apartments in the US are NOT required to have ovens, stoves, and/or refrigerators. I have rented many many times place that had nothing in the kitchen but a sink. It is perfectly legal nearly everywhere (if not everywhere). My kitchen, set up for safety and not because I don't have a stove, consists of an induction hob (no open flame, autoshutoff, on a timer), the air fryer (turns off with the timer), and an0 Instant Pot Ultra 6qt - I'd have gone for the 8qt but they didn't have it in the Ultra model at the time. I use these three all the time. There are 2 other devices useful for a safe kitchen/range-less kitchen that I have but no longer use much since I turned up diabetic.

First is a Zojirushi breadmaker and second is a Zojirushi micom rice cooker that I love but also barely use because rice is a thing Type 2 diabetics should not be eating. BUT IF I COULD still eat bread and rice, those devices would provide it for me. The IPs actually do rice pretty well but I had the Zo rice cooker already before I bought the IP. In fact I turned up diabetic less than a month after I got the rice cooker (which is the best rice cooker I have ever owned in 40 years).

I don't need a conventional oven, at all. Most people actually don't. You can cook nearly everything with just 2 countertop appliances, an induction hob and a good air fryer. You can expand your capabilities a lot with an Instant Pot. Some people DO bake cookies and small pies and cakes in air fryers but if that doesn't work for you, get a good breadmaker and you can make all sorts of cobblers, cakes, and bread without an oven and without a mixer even. And a good rice cooker is still useful if you eat a lot of rice so you don't have to tie up an IP making rice.

You're offended by a five year old post about a different person in different circumstances using different products? Perhaps try to understand why something has been said rather than rushing to claiming an insult. The infomercial comment was a question. It was asking what made her want one. The TV demos at the time looked much more versatile and interesting than the reports on the actual usage from people I knew who had them. I thought the infomercials made them look good, so I thought maybe the OP's mother did too. The original models were very limited in fact, though the inventiveness of their owners was not. An air fryer has been described by one of our tech oriented members, is a small, high speed convection oven. Made more sturdily with more power than the original french fry makers, it can be a useful little appliance.

Thank-you for sharing your experience and reviews. That's very useful information, if people open this old thread.

I think Pyewaket's post was very informational. Too bad she/he was so insulted!