Greentext

Well yeah but it heats up a lot faster using a lot less energy

It doesn't take half an hour to pre heat, it doesn't heat up the whole house, and I'm not sending my power bill through the roof every time I want to make a meal for one person lol

It's a small convection oven. Most ovens are not convection ovens, they're fan ovens or gas ovens. The biggest downside to both of them is that what you're mostly heating up is empty space.

I can practically fill my air fryer with enough food for one person. Clearly more efficient.

Also because of the small size it heats up basically instantly, none of this preheating the oven for 45 minutes before you can cook anything.

It's a concentrated convection oven. It's not magic, but I definitely like mine. Great for side dishes like roasted veggies. Also uses wayyyyy less power and time than a full oven when you're only baking something small enough to fit in an air fryer

It's a nice little convection oven. Especially great for one or two people.

I recently acquired my first 'air fryer'.

Yes, it's an oversized, convection toaster oven, with a lot of fancy programs built in that I probably don't need.

Having had a (gas) convection oven in the past, it's just not the same. It heats up faster, and seems to do a better job of circulating air. Supposedly I had a pretty nice convection oven, too.

I can make really tasty falafel in my 'air fryer' that uses a tiny fraction of the oil that is used for deep frying; I wasn't able to make decent falafel in my convection oven. Does a great job with frozen fries and tater tots too. I need to try roasting brussels sprouts in it, maybe some asparagus.

So far, it's an easy 9/10. The only downside is the footprint.

Oven with a fan. Checkmate fanboys.

Even worse - it is a counter appliance and therefore the path of degeneracy.

It is a bit more complicated than that. The WAY it moves the air is different than in a convection oven, so it "fries" a bit better.

This guy does a great breakdown of how it isn't "just a convection oven"

https://youtu.be/yw--NLjZBNk

When you're paying to heat 5000% more air than you need to, it doesn't matter what the device that saves you money is called.

Toaster oven with a fan.

Yeah it is a small oven, but you use it like a microwave.

Throw it in, put on a timer, and in a couple of minutes your thing will be ready.

Mine also comes as an air grill and making hamburgers from frozen patties takes roughly 15 minutes, bonus it doesn't make a mess on my stovetop and most of the fat drips at the bottom.

The drawer-style air fryers are kinda dumb but the ones with the rotating basket on the inside really do cook french fries way better than you could in a regular oven spread out on a sheet pan and without having to heat up a bunch of oil in a pan to get similar texture.

If only there wasn't a repository of human knowledge that could have cleared everything up before this meme was made:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection_oven#Air_fryer

And BTW, it's closer to an impingement oven

There are two kinds of reactions to trying out an air fryer:

"Wow, this is so much better than a normal oven" and

"Wow, this is so much worse than a normal fryer"

I am very much of the latter opinion

Air fryers are basically just small convection ovens. If you have an oven then an air fryer does nothing you can't already do. That said, it does cook some things slightly faster due to the confined space. I've found mine will cook a chicken in just over an hour saving maybe 20 or 30 minutes on a regular oven. I guess it also saves energy / money but whether it ever pays for itself is another question.

Toaster oven Master race

It is a small fan forced oven. Good for heating up frozen snacks but usually too small to cope with large families and probably not worth bothering if you have a good oven. Since I have a completely shit oven that cooks unevenly, never the right temp, takes ages to heat and heats the whole house up in summer just to make some chicken nuggets for the kids I think they are awesome. If I actually gave a shit about cooking I probably wouldn't bother. If was single I would probably still rate the toaster oven as the most versatile benchtop appliance (though the biggest fire risk) followed by sandwich press but if you have to heat up manufactured rendered chicken waste shaped like dinosaurs for kids they are surprisingly practical.

It's an adult easy bake oven.

I've already seen ovens that now have an 'air fryer' mode in place of 'convection'