I am looking at buying a new microwave and as I don’t already have an air fryer I thought I would look into the combination Microwave and Air fryers. Has anyone got any suggestions of brands or what to look for? Is choice going to review this combination any time soon?
Thanks in advance
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I think you mean a convention microwave oven. Choice has reviewed these reasonably recently:
I see some manufacturers have jumped on the airfryer craze and calling their convention microwave ovens, ‘airfry microwave ovens’
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Thanks phb
Is convection and air frying the same thing? Would they still air fry?
Apparently they are different - but it is very confusing
Some have an airfry function some don’t. As far as I can see there is no specific rating of the airfry function of those that have it. Those that have the function are usually called a 3-in-1 or a combi or something similar.
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There is no standard definition of an ‘airfryer’ or what it is. Airfryers can be be heated using forced forced or a fixed element.
Convection microwaves heat using the same technique as air fryers (the convection part of the name) or microwave energy, or both. A traditional convection oven could also be called an ‘airfyer oven’ if marketing teams chose to rename their products (noting some ovens are sold with an ‘airfry’ function which possibly won’t be different to say ‘fan forced’ functions on other ovens).
I have noticed recently that some convection microwaves have become 'airfryer microwave ovens. I suspect this has been done for marketing purposes, to help them maximise their market share.
If you are shopping for an ‘airfyer microwave oven’, don’t exclude those still called convection microwaves. I haven’t checked, but if ‘airfyer microwave ovens’ are similar to ‘airfyer’ convection ovens, they could be more expensive and not necessarily perform better than their conventional cousins.
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It depends on which country one is in and whose advertisement and product naming you are being exposed to.
Some use the term convection for what others call fan. Fan forced in a ‘small chamber’ is essentially air frying. To reinforce confusion some products use the term ‘convection’ to denote a mode when the fan feature is not used. From our SMEG one can hopefully understand when the fan is and is not used, and whether the fan runs at low or high speed vis a vis what SMEG calls the functions.
We also have a Ninja XL ‘Foodi Pro Air Fryer Oven’ - no microwave - we use it much more than our SMEG. My initial review is here.
The XL has an ‘air fryer’ mode that is quicker than any of the other modes but in practice is slower than an air fryer. My educated guess that is related to the internal volume of these ‘mixed mode’ products.
The XL is as close to impossible to clean as it could be. There may be a way but.
Choice also mentions cleaning as something to pay attention to in the Buyer Guide. The How We Test initially appears to be only about microwaves but it gets to the ‘convection microwaves’ a few paragraphs in.
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Thank you so much phb
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Awesome, Thank you Phil T
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