Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Update: Back to 5 stars. Turns out I contacted Instant via a way I wasn't supposed to. Once I followed the proper method Instant quickly replied. I sent them a video of what was going on so they sent me a new air fryer. However, it was a 4 in 1 air fryer and ours is a 6 in 1. They immediately sent us the right air fryer and told us to keep the 4 in 1 for the inconvenience. Update: After 10 months one of the two air fryers tells us to close the drawer even when the drawer is closed. I know it's the unit and not the drawer because both our drawers work in one air fryer but neither drawer works in the other air fryer. If we push down on the drawer the message goes away and it begins cooking again but once we release the downward pressure the error message comes back. I contacted Instant a week ago via their online website but they haven't responded. I'll update again about my experience with Instant. Update: After 9 months we still love these air fryers. We've found NOT to spray cooking oil directly into the baskets. The cooking spray caramelizes on the basket and bottom plate and is pretty hard to clean. We toss our food with olive oil first then air fr them. I did a LOT of research before landing on the Vortex Plus 6 Quart Air Fryer. I really like the Ninja 10 quart with two drawers but I couldn't find the internal dimensions of the basket. I don't know why Sellers don't provide this information and Amazon answers were not for the 10 quart baskets. The Vortex 6 quart basket is only about 8 square inches smaller than the Ninja 8 quart baskets (2 four quarts) combined. It appeared to me Ninja gets its volume size by smaller surface areas and taller baskets. Air fryers work best with single layers of food but you can load a basket and still get good results. Internal basket dimensions are 9 3/8" X 9 5/8" X 4". There are two arrows on the plate and basket that shows you how to put the plate in the basket. Also, the plate has a rubber bumper on each side that keeps it snug to the basket. The very hot plate does not fall out when dumping food unlike Ninja as reviewers have noted. You should operate the machine with no food in it at 400 degrees F for 18 minutes to remove any new plastic smell. I did it twice. Very easy and intuitive to use. 1. Select the mode such as Air Fry. 2. Touch the Temp/Time button and set the Temp by rotating the dial. 4. Tough the Temp/Time button again and set the Time by rotating the dial. 5. Press Start. It takes right at 3 minutes and 30 seconds to preheat to 400 degrees F. Once you cook something the air fryer will retain the time and temperature for the next time. It will tell you when to shake your food; it is not at the halfway point. For 18 minutes it will tell you to shake at 6 minutes and at 10 minutes it tells you to shake at 4 minutes. I assume the engineers at Instant know more about this than me so I assume these are ideal times to shake. On to the the external heat this machine produces. There's a small vent on the back that lets hot air escape. I'm confident the air is not so hot that it would damage my painted upper cabinets. The underneath side does not get hot at all; however, the black plastic feet get warm to the touch. Even though there are 1/8" rubber pads under the black feet I'm going to put something under the machine to protect my wood countertops. This is probably unnecessary. At 1,700 watts (14.18 amps) it pushes the limits of a 15 amp outlet but the well-insulated cord does not get hot as I expected. If your outlet is old it may cause the outlet to fail as they are known to do. Since I had some 20 amp outlets laying around I went ahead and replaced the 15 amp outlets. If you do this be sure you have 12 gauge wire and 20 amp breakers. Again, probably not necessary. Clean up is a breeze. However, if you put soapy water in the basket and slosh it around water will get trapped between the interior and exterior windows. It will dry out and there are 4 screws that hold the handle and exterior window on if you want to take it apart to clean the windows. One reason I chose the Instant Vortex Plus 6 Quart Air Fryer is because it topped the lists at both America's Text Kitchen and The Food Network. For only $30 more than the Ninja 10 quart, I bought two 6 quart Instant Air Fryers so we could cook two items simultaneous as a lot of reviewers said they do. I'm very glad I bought two. For our test run we cooked wings in one and roasted corn on the cob in the other. Both turned out fantastic! The next night we cooked 2 different sized potatoes and both turned out perfect without having to add additional time for the large potato. Update: Still loving these air fryers! Here's a tip. Instructions say to unplug the air fryer after every use. The 'Ready' indicator will remain on if plugged in. Unplugging was a problem for us because one of our air fryer outlets is back in a corner where my roommate couldn't reach it and who wants to unplug every time anyway?! My solution was to get some smart outlets here on Amazon. Now we leave them plugged in and tell Alexa to turn on and off the air fryers. Works great! I hope this information is useful. Please let me know if you found this review helpful.