After two years and hundreds of cooking cycles, my PowerXL Air Fryer stopped working. The device appears to have suffered from an electrical problem. Faced with the prospect of not having an air fryer, I decided to shop for a new one and settled on the Ninja EzView Air Fryer Max XL. The air fryer was on sale for $120 and regularly $169.99, which is quite expensive for an air fryer. I decided to take the expense for a device I use pretty much every week.

I was thinking with the Ninja brand behind it, there is no way this brand could disappoint right? Wrong.

The air fryer does not crisp up French fries well or make chicken wings very crispy. Compared to my prior air fryer, French fries come out soggy. The heating element inside the air fryer doesn’t seem to work very well. Even at 400 degrees, it takes a very long time to cook frozen hashbrowns inside the air fryer. Almost 15-20 minutes.

The Max Crisp button is sold a way to crisp quickly, but what actually happens is the outside of the food will cook, while the inside is still cold. I found this out when I decided to cook a corn dog in the air fryer and the Max Crisp button burn the bottom of the corn dog and the shell, without cooking the hot dog inside after 20 minutes of cooking. I started using my oven again to cook corn dogs out of disdain for this function and because the trade off on time meant its better to bake.

I tried to use the air fryer to make chicken wings as well, which always came out superb in my appliance. It takes roughly double the time to cook wings in this machine and they don’t come out nearly as crispy.

Overall, it is a big letdown. I decided to return the air fryer and go back to my old brand. This is not worth $169.99 or $120 or any money at all. I do not recommend this product to anyone.