Philips Premium Airfryer XXL review

If you’re the type of person who insists on the top of the line and are willing to pay for it, the Philips Premium Airfryer XXL is the best air fryer for you. As soon as you lift it and feel how heavy it is, you know it’s well built. It also has a big capacity so it’s a great choice if there’s always a crowd at your dinner table. 

It comes at a steep price tag though and it’s pretty noisy. Read on for our full Philips Premium Airfryer XXL review to see if it’s worth the expense.

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Philips Premium Airfryer XXL review: Price and availability

The Philips Premium Airfryer XXL is available at Amazon from $350.29.

Philips Premium Airfryer XXL review: Design

The Philips Premium Airfryer XXL is shaped like a big barrel made of glossy black plastic. When you use the handle to pull out the baskets, they glide out on a track. You then lift out the inner basket, leaving the bottom one without a handle. There are a couple of glitches with this design. First of all, as the inner cooking basket has a mesh screen on the bottom, fat and juices can drip onto the countertop or floor. Secondly, as there’s no longer a handle on the machine, you then have to pry it open to replace the inner basket. 

On top there’s a digital panel that’s controlled by turning and pressing a dial. The settings on the display are small. Each preset is represented by an icon such as a steak for meat.

In addition to being large, measuring 12 x 16 x 12 inches, the Philips is fairly heavy (19 pounds) so it’s not easy to move around or carry if you want to store it in a cabinet or closet between uses.

Philips Premium Airfryer XXL review: Cooking performance

This air fryer performed best on brussel sprouts and breaded chicken on test. It was also a fairly high scorer for overall ease of use in terms of intuitive controls, the detail in the manual and ease of cleaning. It wasn’t scored on this, but we were particularly impressed with its performance when frying a large batch of frozen fries — it did better on this than it did with smaller portions! 

There’s no preheat required on the Philips, however food generally needed more time to fry than suggested. Cooking in this fryer is a one-step process though which is convenient. This makes it easy to add more time if things aren’t quite done without worrying about the oven going into standby. After you press the “on” button you have the option of selecting a preset program or your own temperature and time.

Philips claims its basket has a 3 pound capacity and recommends cooking 2 pounds of fries. When we cooked a 32-ounce bag of crinkle cuts, we got an impressive result — all of the fries were browned and crispy after the recommended 33 minutes, with two stops to toss the fries. However, we wouldn’t suggest cooking items like breaded pork chops or fish filets piled on top of each other if you want crispy results. For those types of foods, you’re limited to the size of the bottom of the basket which is a 9-inch square.

Breaded chicken cutlets and brussel sprouts came out perfectly browned and crispy, chicken wings a little less so. When we cooked a pound each of frozen and homemade French fries, we got good, but not great results, which is to say they browned and crisped unevenly and stayed fairly tender. We actually got better results, as mentioned above, with a larger quantity of fries.

There is no roast setting, but there is a recipe in the accompanying recipe book for roast chicken. After 50 minutes, a three-pound chicken came out juicy and picture-perfect, with a crispy skin all over except on the bottom. In our experience, it’s rare for the bottom of a bird to crisp up unless it's cooked on a spit or turned during cooking. We loved being able to put the baskets into the dishwasher and be done with cleanup.

Four 4-ounce hamburgers cooked in 15 minutes. As from all air fryers, they came out like broiled burgers rather than grilled or pan-cooked ones. They were browned but didn’t have a dark crusty exterior. However, they were juicy and there were no spatters to clean. We did get some smoking though.

Philips Premium Airfryer review: Ease of use and cleaning

The first time we used the Philips we needed to refer to the manual to identify some of the icons on the control panel. After a few uses, it’s easy to get the hang of programming the air fryer, although the icons for the presets are tiny and you have to squint a bit to see them. The dial makes it easy to quickly adjust the setting, temperature, and time. 

This air fryer has more parts than a typical model. In addition to an outer basket or drawer, it has a removable part called a “Fat reducer” that sits in the drawer and a cooking basket with a removable mesh bottom. While the baskets glide out of the air fryer without any need to tug, when you lift the handle up,  only the inner basket comes out so you can wind up with drips through the mesh. Then, when you have to replace the basket, you have to pry open the machine as there’s no handle for the lower basket. 

It’s unlikely that anyone will be burned by touching the Philips when it’s heating. The highest temp we recorded was 138.5°F on the base front-side. The handle and the controls remain cool enough to touch. As it operates, the air fryer has a dBA reading of 64.7, which is one of the noisiest air fryers we had on test.   

All of the removable parts are coated with a nonstick finish and they can be placed in the dishwasher. However food debris can get caught in the mesh and can be hard to remove. With this air fryer, you get a very detailed use and care manual as well as a softcover recipe book. 

Philips Premium Airfryer XXL review: Verdict

The Philips Premium Airfryer XXL is a very solidly built machine that comes with a high price tag. It scored very well on the majority of tests for air frying, with no areas in which it particularly fell down. This makes it an all round performer, however, you can get food that’s just as brown and crispy from a much less expensive machine, such as our winner, the  Cosori Smart Wifi Air Fryer 5.8qt.

Our only qualm really is the cooking basket — it is not terribly difficult to use. but is more inconvenient than those in other air fryers. However, it does have one big advantage in its ability to do an excellent job at frying 2 pounds of French fries at once. If you feed a lot of people often that might make it worth the money to you.