The Cooklite Aero Fryer from Big Boss heats food in three different ways – a halogen lamp, infrared heat and convection. In our testing the design led to speedy cook times but very uneven heating. This was one of the only air fryers we tried that truly burned the food in some spots. Other spots were fine but the almost-black areas on our batches of fries were not appetizing. The chicken had some overdone patches, too. For more even heating, consider the NuWave Brio.
One thing this unit has going for it is the glass lid – at least when it comes to the cooking process. You can watch out for darker spots during the cooking process and move food around. Most other units require at least one shake of the basket during the cook times, though, and not constant vigilance – they largely regulated themselves.
The controls are old fashioned dials so they were harder than most to use. It wasn't always clear what temperature and time we set. This one was relatively easy to clean until we remembered the glass top is attached to the heating element. We didn't want to get that element close to any water so we were only able to wipe down that glass lid, which didn't feel clean enough.
The Aero Fryer had a pretty small capacity, though there was an extender ring to make more room. This fryer is rather short, which will save you some under-cabinet room, but it is also sort of wide, which is not helpful for countertop space preservation. This one is fun when it comes to décor decisions – you can find it in both black and red.
Only two of the air fryers we reviewed became hot on the surface, and this is one of those. If you have kids, you will want to look for one that is cooler to the touch. And it is one of only two that isn't designed to shut itself off automatically. At least it is the quietest of all the units we tested.
The Aero Fryer looks cool and is sort of fun to use because you can watch food cooking. It did not keep up with competitors in our testing, though. It was not able to cook food evenly from one side to the other and produced some food that was downright burned on the edges. There was some nicely cooked food in every batch, but the results were so unpredictable that we can't recommend this unit.
