Kmart Anko 7.5L Air Fryer

Probably worth three stars, but it has not been a good working relationship between myself and this apparently cheap and cheerful air fryer, so two stars it is. ... Pros: The size and shape are good - it easily fits in a family's worth of marinated drum sticks. Generally cooks ok. The user panel is simple and straightforward. The available pre-set cooking options are good. It mostly cleans up OK - the non-stick surface is ok, but it did seem to be thinning out after 6months of once - twice a week use and washing.

Con: It is definitely built to a price. There's a rubber grommet to give the basket stability, but the grommet readily falls out during washing. Annoying! The clincher however was that the air flow is badly designed, leading to the control panel being exposed to generated steam and glitching, which in the end saw me "hand me down" the appliance to someone with more patience.

I honestly expected better, since my previous air fryer was an Anko and it lasted about 7 years of being used several times a week before it finally gave up the ghost. (Previous review in my back catalog!) As a result I expected similar from its replacement.

...

DETAILS: The first signs of trouble was the single rubber grommet pressed into the bottom of the basket to help support the basket against the drawer. The grommet would drop out readily when washing - I almost lost it down the plug hole more than once. The simple latched basket design works for a smaller basket, but not this bigger capacity version. It's just too cantilevered, rattles around when removing the drawer and when carrying the drawer/basket combo by the basket handle.

But you could probably live with that.

The thing that killed this fryer for me was that when cooking something with a lot of moisture, such as when roasting vegies, or cooking frozen chips, the generated steam wasn't all expelled from the vent at the back. It was like the air flow had an inherent flaw that saw the basket back pressured, because steam would escape from all around the drawer. That didn't seem to be an issue at first, but after a while, this seemed to effect the electronics in the touch panel.

The panel would beep and the temperature would ramp up to max and overcook food, or ramp down to min and not cook well. Or the timer would ramp up to max and stay at 30mins never counting down, or ramp down to min and end before food was cooked. Sometimes both the timer and temperature would glitch. In fact, which way the panel would go wasn't predictable and once it had glitched, the control panel would no longer respond to touch commands. You had to turn the power off at the wall for a bit, then it would start back from "normal", however within another minute or so it would glitch again. Rinse and repeat until steam production was minimal and the unit would operate as intended. Very frustrating.

It was unreliable for anything with high water content. That suggests a fundamental design flaw.

If you had the patience to supervise it or set a separate kitchen timer, you could probably learn to live with it - but that defeated the purpose.

Apart from that, it had a lot of promise. If you have one that doesn't display this fundamental flaw, you'd probably be quite happy about your $69 7.5l air fryer. Sadly, I misplaced the receipt so no warranty exchanges for me.