Proscenic T22 air fryer review: smart, but not sleek

The Chinese language model Proscenic covers a variety of residence home equipment, most notably vacuums and robotic vacuum cleaners. Nonetheless, it’s additionally made the shrewd resolution to use its smart-tech expertise to the air fryer market, utilizing the identical app that would management your robotic vac to additionally monitor your air fryer from afar.

The Proscenic T22 air fryer is the newest air fryer launch from the model –I attempted the T21 a 12 months in the past –, so I put it to the check for a couple of weeks to see the way it compares to the already-crowded best air fryer market. One factor’s for positive, and that’s that the T22 nonetheless provides one thing fascinating that different air fryers don’t: an app with in-built recipes and the power to begin the air fryer remotely. Sadly, it lacks one thing that, in my view, is way extra essential: a sturdy, user-friendly design.

Perfect Dwelling’s score: 3 out of 5 stars

Causes to purchase:

• The app is compelling
• It cooks meals fairly evenly
• Some will benefit from the recipe presets
• A big inside capability
• Recurrently goes on sale for beneath £100

Causes to keep away from

• The design is a bit clunky
• Skinny plastic development
• Preset timings had been hit-and-miss
• It didn’t pace up cooking instances

Proscenic T22 Air Fryer

Specs:

• Materials: Plastic
• Color: Black
• Capability: 5 litres
• Modes: Fries, Rooster, Steak, Vegetable, Fish, Shrimp, Pizza, Bacon, Onion Rings, Cake, Toast
• Weight: 4.54kg
• Energy: 1500 watts
• Measurement: ‎40.6 x 37.9 x 33.5 cm centimetres

Getting began with the Proscenic T22 Air Fryer

My first impression of the Proscenic T22 Air Fryer was how mild it was. It is because it’s all just about manufactured from plastic. Positive, many air fryers are manufactured from plastic, however fashions from Cosori or Ninja are normally pretty sturdy in construct, good for opening that frying basket and slamming it shut once more a whole bunch, if not 1000’s of instances. The Proscenic T22 feels flimsier, but it surely did make it very light-weight at simply 5.41kg.

The highest of the air fryer is roofed in an expansive recipe map. The pre-sets are intensive: bacon, fried rooster, frozen meals, even onion rings and pizza, they usually’re fairly straightforward to differentiate utilizing the photographs of the varied meals.

There’s additionally a pre-heat setting (not all air fryers have this, but it surely’s one thing I’m an enormous fan of), a maintain heat mode, and controls to toggle the timings and temperatures of your recipes manually.

When utilizing the air fryer you should press from the on-top management panel, which seems to be similar to the design of the Cosori Pro LE Air Fryer L501. The massive distinction is that the Cosori has a thicker glass high which feels fairly sturdy. The Proscenic wants fairly a agency press to get going, and I do fear that over time the buttons would rub away from the highest of the air fryer with a lot tactile management wanted.

The hero to this hypothetical is the app: it’s truly fairly straightforward to arrange (from somebody who dreads organising sensible home equipment) and it does allow you to scroll a whole bunch of fascinating recipes and work on timings and controls with added steerage. You possibly can gear your air fryer up to be used by turning on the pre-heat remotely, and even pair it with Alexa. It’s a pleasant thought, positive, however given how hands-on cooking finally must be, it gained’t prevent quite a lot of time. You’ll nonetheless must rise up and add your meals to your pre-heated air fryer, and also you’ll nonetheless want to return to the machine when it prompts you to shake or flip no matter you’re cooking.

Cooking within the Proscenic T22

The Proscenic T22 comes with a pleasant recipe ebook, filled with concepts and inspiration of various recipes. I had a go on the Hasselback potatoes, which regarded very compelling. The recipe was in Fahrenheit, which wasn’t massively useful for a British consumer who works in Celcius, however it’s straightforward sufficient to transform to about 180°C.

These potatoes got here out good, however they did take about 40 minutes to prepare dinner which is quite a bit longer than different air fryers in the marketplace, which might pace up cooking time. They had been additionally fairly mushy on the skin, and missing within the crunch and crispiness I might normally count on from air-fried potatoes. Tasty? After all. In any case, it’s potatoes and cheese. Nonetheless, I feel one other air fryer would’ve completed a greater job.

Making fajitas within the Proscenic T22

A easy fajita filling is without doubt one of the best issues to make in an air fryer. I merely minimize up some rooster and a pink pepper, tossed it in some fajita seasoning, and put the air fryer on to pre-heat earlier than including to the basket. Though my potatoes took a very long time to prepare dinner, I used to be happy that my rooster was completed in beneath 10 minutes. I used to be additionally proud of the end, which was even throughout the complete basket.

One factor I discovered with the Proscenic T22, and this can be particular to the one I attempted, was that the drawer was very arduous to completely shut. There’s a button on the highest of the deal with that you should press down earlier than yanking out the basket. Typically I discovered it finest to maintain a hand on the air fryer so it didn’t transfer whereas I opened the basket, however shutting the drawer once more took various pressure.

Cooking bacon

I all the time prepare dinner bacon when testing an air fryer, as a result of when completed proper it ought to lead to evenly crisped rashers with none chewiness. Most take between 8-10 minutes to complete cooking, and whereas it’s helpful to show the bacon midway by means of, I’ve discovered that it’s not important.

The bacon preset beneficial 12 minutes at 160 levels, which felt far too low to prepare dinner my bacon how I prefer it. In others I do 8 minutes at 190 and that is sufficient time to render out the fats with out drying the meat out. I did do that pre-set, however shortly realised that I most popular my very own larger temperature and shorter timings, in order that’s what I did with my check batch.

The bacon I cooked within the Proscenic T22 had some tasty crispy bits, however I discovered that the entrance of the air fryer cooked a bit greater than the again, which left a few of the fats un-rendered from the again facet of the basket. Maybe it might’ve benefitted from turning the bacon midway by means of. The air fryer additionally took 12 minutes to succeed in this end result, which is a bit longer than the typical air fryer I’ve tried.

Cleansing

A plus of any air fryer is when it has a detachable insert on the backside, which the Proscenic T22 fortunately does. It’s a notable enchancment to the T21, which had a basket that needed to be lifted out of the deal with. The insert could be very straightforward to scrub because of a nonstick coating over the within of the basket and the insert itself. Simply scrub with some dish cleaning soap and heat water and let it dry.

Must you purchase the Proscenic T22?

For those who like the concept of pre-sets, the Proscenic T22 is without doubt one of the few air fryers in the marketplace you’ll be able to select from. I might warning that this pre-set sport is a bit hit-and-miss, but it surely’s a great way to get into air fryers in the event you’re nervous about cooking completely different dishes. One other benefit is the app-compatibility. That is fairly uncommon within the air fryer sport, and whereas I don’t suppose it made a large distinction to my life I’m additionally admittedly extra tech-averse than some, and subsequently not the best Proscenic T22 buyer.

When it comes to the standard of the construct, in unconvinced that this air fryer would final very lengthy. It has a really skinny plastic exterior and the markings on the controls and presets really feel like they’d rub away simply. The basket was additionally fairly tough. Briefly, for an air fryer with an RRP of £129 (though at time of writing, it’s all the way down to a a lot decrease £79) it’s simply not definitely worth the cash in the event you don’t plan on utilizing the sensible features. Instead I’d advocate you check out the Philips Essential Air Fryer review for an instance of an air fryer with pre-sets, that additionally air fries very properly.

About this evaluate, and our reviewer

Millie Fender is Perfect Dwelling’s small equipment and cooking editor, and the staff’s resident air fryer fanatic. She’s tried each one of many air fryers we advocate at Perfect Dwelling, which implies she’s in a position to examine instantly between fashions.

The Proscenic T22 was examined over the course of two weeks which allowed Millie to place it by means of its paces for not solely cooking high quality, however construct and consumer expertise.