One of the more interesting features of the touch interface is Sync Finish. As the name suggests, this allows you to individually set each basket’s mode, temperature and time and have them both finish simultaneously. That’s because you’re presented with many buttons surrounding the central digital display. It was incredibly daunting initially, and it took me a few minutes to work out how to start the air fryer (the start button looks like an odd fast-forward button), but within a few uses, I’d gotten the hang of it. The performance of the AFW01 Air Fryer was good overall but there are some areas that could use improvement. For example, as there are no recipes, or guidance for cooking different types of food, I was unsure what programme to use for frozen food, although as 200°C was the highest temperature available, this seemed like the best option. The curly fries were done in 12 minutes at just 170℃, while the turkey drummers came out perfectly golden in little over 16 minutes at 180℃ – a process made much easier by the aforementioned Sync Finish feature.

While the maximum 2400W draw at full capacity will see a drain of roughly 71p an hour on current electricity tariffs, that’s still much cheaper than a conventional oven, and more importantly, it’s not very often you’ll use the air fryer for that long. Within each basket is a crisper plate, which can sit either one-third or two-thirds of the way down depending on what you’re cooking – you can bring foods like sausages closer to the heat source when grilling for a better finish. A handy little touch is the addition of grippy silicone feet on both sides of the grill plate that helps it stay securely place, even if you’re tipping a basket of chips onto a plate. The Chefree AWF20 serves not only as a great alternative to a conventional oven with faster cook times and less energy consumption, but it also has a leg-up on most of the air fryer competition. Cooking is achieved by Chefree's 360° evenly distributed rapid air circulation technology, which sends super-hot air around the food up to four times faster than a traditional oven. This is where the energy savings are made: things are simply done much faster with an air fryer. Of course, you don’t buy a huge air fryer to make cheese on toast, so let’s talk about more involved meals.

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It doesn’t get too warm on the lid, but even so, I’d not recommend leaving anything on there that could potentially burn or melt over longer periods of use. The bigger thing to worry about is the dual rear exhausts, which can put out quite a bit of hot air during use. The dual 4L basket design allows you to cook two different foods at different temperatures and even different cooking modes, at the same time, with a Sync Finish option removing the need to manually time your cook so all your food is ready at the same time. While not especially heavy (5.7kg), the Chefree Air Fryer Grill AFG01 is chunky, taking up a sizable portion of worktop space. It’s styled in a similar way to other indoor grills, such as Ninja’s Foodi Max – with a chunky handle to lift the lid, like a barbecue, and carry handles on each side. Having two completely independent cooking drawers means you can easily prepare two different foods at once, also using different programmes, times and temperatures for each drawer (e.g. roast in one; air fry in the other), yet also instruct the Chefree to have everything ready to serve at the same time. This 'Sync Finish Function' is actually reasonably amazing, to be fair, and it takes a lot of hassle out of cooking large meals to feed a family or even just something for yourself of an evening. No need to cook elements of the menu sequentially: everything can be ready at once (provided your planned meal fits into two drawers, obvs).

The Chefree AFW20 air fryer is the latest iteration on the air fryer concept, building on the well-established form and function, yet still managing to add a few new appealing features. It also includes the ability to air fry – suitable for those who aren’t sure how often they’ll make chips and other air-fried goodies, but would like the option from time to time. Design and features SYNC Finish, Serve Together: Thanks to 2 independent frying baskets, you can use different programs, times and temp in each draw, both ready at the same time. With Dual Cook Function, get the double guilt-free fried foods with the SYNC cook function. With eight cooking modes available, there’s practically an option for whatever you need, down to rather specific modes like Broil that’ll deliver top-down heating only to melt the cheese on your toast perfectly.

You can also search recipes by your specific Chefree model (Chefree makes more than one air fryer, as you can imagine), so the app will tell you exactly which buttons to press. It's the ultimate idiot's guide to air frying, but genuinely useful to get you up and running. Once you get the hang of things, new ideas and ingredients should start to pop into your head unbidden, as the potential of the device gradually dawns on you. There is a Chefree App featuring over 100 recipes "by our chef" (the company says), organised into useful categories, e.g. 'Breakfast Food' and a '21-day Food Plan'. There's a traditonal Recipe Book format, where you can search/define by keyword (e.g. Simple, Western, French, Japanese, Difficulty etc) and also save your own recipes.

Grilling food using your oven can deliver mixed results, as anyone who’s ever burnt meat or veggies while using one can attest to. The post-pandemic parallel stresses of a cost-of-living crisis compounded by soaring energy bills has been a positive boon for the air fryer industry. People have still got to eat, so the idea of being able to prepare hot meals in half the time has proved a deliciously attractive proposition. The controls are at the front in a touchscreen panel: there are presets for roasting, air frying, air broiling (similar to grilling), baking, beef and fries, as well as a four-temperature air grill setting, and manual controls for both time and temperature. Beyond the presets, there’s very little guidance on which settings each food requires, so for veggies and poultry, for example, it’ll be a case of trying different programmes out to find the best one.

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Still, if your kitchen countertops are big enough, it’s doable – and there’s a good reason why it’s so large. Also on the control panel is the light button, which illuminates the cooking cavity for a minute, thanks to a window within the drawer. The window itself is small, slightly tinted, and obscured by a handle, so it’s not always easy to see how brown the food actually is.