The Bella Air Convection Fryer is like a compact version of all the family-sized competitors we reviewed. If you want something relatively small for the apartment or dorm room, this is perfect, especially considering the low price. It did a decent job with the food in our tests, and it takes so little counterspace. If you need more of a family-sized air fryer, check out the Philips Airfryer XL.
In our cooking tests, the food was evenly cooked, for the most part. There were a few spots that looked darker in the fries and chicken batches, but that was the case with all the fryers we tested at least some of the time. This manufacturer, and most others, recommend shaking the food basket about halfway through the cooking cycle to ensure even results. The more often we did that, the more it helped.
For all its smallness, it still makes a big racket. It was the second loudest we tested. That is not a huge disadvantage, but it still seemed sort of annoying compared to the others. There was only one that made more noise than this one.
The Bella got a perfect score for cleaning. Its basket is coated in nonstick material that came clean easily when we washed it by hand. It can also go into the dishwasher.
The Bella is great for safety. It shuts itself off after a cycle, stays cool to the touch, and its nonstick feet keep this unit in place.
This air fryer has a nice long warranty that lasts two years and that inspires confidence in the product. There was only one machine with a longer warranty. Bella also supports this product with instructional videos and a digital version of the manual that is easy to find.
The controls are manual dials on the Bella but at least the print around the dials is easy to read. It was still harder than the digital ones to know the exact temperature and time we set.
The Bella Air Convection Fryer was not outstanding in our testing – it did not produce perfectly even results and it was loud – but it was solid overall. Also, this one is compact and has a relatively low price, so it might be just the thing for the dorm room or a smaller household.
