Philips Essential XL Connected Airfryer Model HD9280/90 (kitchen review)

The Philips Essential XL Connected Airfryer Model HD9280/90 is a 1.2L air fryer with an optional 6.2L pan for cooking other types of food. Connected means it has the NutriU App, although it can operate without it.

The primary appeal of an Airfryer is to fry foods with a minimum of fat (oil). Interestingly, until recently, I have never used any form of fryer – deep, pan, or shallow – because I associated them with lots of oil and wanted to eat healthily. This air fries with little or no oil – perhaps a light canola spray.

Well, I can say that the experience with cooking freshly cut potato fries, whole chicken, meat, frozen fries, snitty, hash browns, and more shows just how wrong the preconception is that air fried foods are unhealthy.

You should consider it an extra kitchen cooking tool that can add to your stove-top, griller, oven and more. The trick is to use the right tool for the job.

Australian Review: Philips Essential XL Connected Airfryer Model HD9280/90

Website	Product Page and PDF Manual
Price	$399 ($299 at Bing Lee and Good Guys to 30 October)
From	Harvey Norman, David Jones, Bing Lee, Myer, Appliances Online, Good Guys, Amazon, Costco or wherever Philips appliances are sold
Warranty	2-year ACL
Country of origin	China
Company	Philips (Est 1891) is a Dutch multinational with interests in lighting, consumer lifestyle, consumer healthcare, and commercial health equipment.
More	Cybershack’s Philips news and reviews

We use Fail (below expectations), Pass (meets expectations) and Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader) against many of the items below. We occasionally give a Pass ‘+’ rating to show it is good but does not quite make it to Exceed.

You can click on most images for an enlargement.

Health benefits – Better than oil frying

Undoubtedly, air-fried food uses far less oil/fat than pan, shallow or deep-fried. The teaspoon or so of oil (use Canola or Canola spray as it is low smoke) is more of a coating to get a browner, crisper finish. But remember that it does not materially alter the kilojoules or carbohydrates of the food you intend to air fry. You need to ensure that frozen convenience foods like chips, wedges, or hash browns do not dominate your diet.

We congratulate Philips on its NutriU app – there is a lot of work in putting that together, and it contains all you need to know. We felt we had mastered air frying after exploring its recipes and understanding what it could and could not do.

How does an Airfryer work?

A large heating element (1800W) at the top draws air into the cooking cavity and, via Philips Rapid Air Technology, ‘swirls’ it around the food in a ventilated pull-out basket. It has a temperature selection of up to 200° and a timer.

Air-frying does not quite give the same crunch, colour or ‘mouthfeel’ as fish and chip shop deep-frying when you bite into it.

Philips adds value by including several pre-sets – frozen snacks, fresh fries, meat, fish, chicken drumsticks, cake and grilled vegetables. These simply select the right temperature and time.

It also adds value with the NutriU App for Android and iOS, has more than 2000 recipes (not all for Air-fryers), and communicates with the Airfryer via Wi-Fi to set it for each recipe.

Hint #1: Understand serial cooking

Most cooks have several things on the go – stove-top, oven, griller etc. While the Philips Essential XL can do many things, it can only do one thing at a time – like having only one pot to cook with. So, in meal preparation, you will likely use it for one, perhaps two items. For example, if you cook a chicken, you then let it rest for about 30 minutes, so you have time to cook some fries.

Hint #2: It is just a tool

As soon as you realise that it only really has time and temperature settings, you can start to use it instead of other cooking tools. The difference is that it is faster due to Philips Rapid Air Technology.

Generally, you will continue to do what you know – meat on a grill (or you could use the air fryer), vegetables in the microwave (ditto), and maybe a pie in the oven (ditto).

Hint #3: Don’t compare Airfryers on price

A generic air fryer (<$100) will just have a timer and temperature setting, a lower wattage element and a small basket. If all you want to do is cook a couple of cups of frozen chips, snacks (like spring rolls and nuggets) and maybe risk grilling chicken wings, then this is all you need.

This is superior (although not as large as the $629, 7.3L XXL Airfryer)

• Philips Rapid Air technology is up to seven times faster than a standard air-fryer
• You can fit a pot, dual-level stand or baking tray
• Smart sensing adjusts the five pre-sets to suit the quantity
• Fat removal ‘drip tray’ to stop contents sitting in hot fat
• Dishwasher-safe basket and drip tray

Recipes – the secret sauce – Pass+

It is the NutriU recipes that make this special. Otherwise, you will eat a lot of chips.

The broad headings include (and some examples)

• Bread (rolls, focaccia, cakes, bagels, Pizza)
• One Pot meals (using the optional 6.2L pot – Shepherd’s Pie, Stews, Noodle Bake)
• Breakfast (Poached Eggs, Souffle, Avocado Baked Egg, Omelette)
• Lunch (Pub fries, lemon chicken, French toast, lamb couscous, grilled veggies)
• Dinner (Jacket Potatoes, baked dumplings, Kofta, pies, Ratatouille, Lamb Crown)
• Chicken Dishes (Chicken Roulade, Grilled Chicken, Roast Chicken, Chicken Pies)
• Potato dishes (Sweet potato fries, croquettes, raclette patties, baby/roast potatoes)
• Fish dishes (Asian cod, fish lasagne, salmon fillets, Fish tacos, grilled fish, salmon quiche)
• Desert (Cookies, Fried ice cream, cupcakes, tarts, Churros, Cinnamon buns)
• Vegetarian (Rainbow toasties, Rhubarb or Apple Tarte, Satay Egg pant, Stuffed capsicum)

As NutriU is all electronic, it is easy to browse and see step-by-step instructions and have the Philips Essential XL Connected Airfryer set up over Wi-Fi. You can also enable sharing with NutriU for more recipes, and there is quite an active Philips Airfryer online community.

Setup – Pass

Download NutriU and follow the instructions. We had some trouble connecting to Wi-Fi, but we tracked that down to the new Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi 6E router. It just needs a basic 2.4Ghz connection with WPA-2 encryption (not the later WPA-3 set by default on new routers). Once we set up the IoT band, it was fine.

How does it cook?

This review will be updated with other culinary successes over time.

We started with the old favourite – fresh chips. The success here is to use the right ‘floury’ potatoes, peel (optional), cut into 1 x 1 cm strips and soak in room temperature water for 30 minutes before drying, tossing with a teaspoon of oil, and frying.

The pre-set includes preheating, so it warms (10 minutes @120°) and then cooks (25 minutes @ 180°). You remove the basket a few times and shake it (to fry the chips evenly).

If you don’t want to cut the potatoes, then frozen supermarket fries are OK. The pre-set is 24 minutes @180°.

You can roast a chicken as well (and meat), but you need to go for a smaller bird (around 1kg).

Food is kept warm until you remove it.

Maintenance – Pass+

It is 403 (L) x315 (W) x307 (H) x 5.5kg, so it should fit in most kitchen cupboards.

As much as you can put the basket and drip tray in the dishwasher, they take up a lot of room. If you leave them overnight, allowing food juice to dry, not even the best dishwasher will not remove it.

Cleaning within an hour of use and the grease-cutting power of a good dishwashing detergent (do not use a scourer) is easy and most effective. Removal of melted cheese requires soaking in hot water.

You occasionally need to clean the element and tray compartment to stop baked-on oil or juice splatter from smoking up at the next use.

Power Use – Pass

It has a 2000W element (maximum draw), and unlike an oven, it does not need preheating and generally has shorter cooking times; it is about 50% more cost-effective.

Note that a typical power point is 240V x 10A = 2400W. You must not plug this into a double adaptor or have too many other electrical items on the same power circuit.

By comparison, a typical hard-wired oven will use from 2200 to 5600W (maximum fan-forced, 90cm pyrolytic oven).

CyberShack’s view – Philips Essential XL Connected Airfryer is perfect for me

Over the years, I have reviewed several Airfryers, and none really made enough impression on me to change my cooking habits or use them as a part of my cooking regimen. I did like the Philips XXL, but it was too big for my wife and me.

The Philips Essential XL Connected Airfryer has made such an impression, and the NutriU App makes it that much easier to use this for more than fries. It joins my other necessary tools – the Ninja Foodi Grill, Breville Smart Grill Pro, Weber iGrill Bluetooth Thermometer, Sharp Convection Microwave oven and a set of Tefal pots and pans. Oh, and we must not forget the Ooni Pizza Oven – cooked in 60 seconds – really! (Cooking appliance review) – forgive my little indulgence, but it is simultaneously so good and wickedly bad.