On a Tuesday night in a small London flat, the argument doesn’t start over politics or money. It starts over chips. Emma, 34, is holding her beloved air fryer basket like a trophy, while her partner scrolls through his phone, waving a shiny new promise at her: a multitasking cooker that grills, steams, slow-cooks, bakes, pressure-cooks, and, he insists, “blows air fryers out of the water.” The device has nine functions, glossy PR photos, and a slogan that basically says: anything your air fryer can do, I can do better.
On social media, the debate is a small war. Air fryer loyalists feel attacked. Curious cooks feel tempted. Appliance brands feel a new frontier opening.
One machine, nine functions, and suddenly our kitchens are a battleground.
A new challenger walks into the kitchen
The new multitasking cooker looks innocent enough out of the box. Slightly bulkier than a classic air fryer, with a spaceship-style lid and a control panel full of icons that glow like a gaming keyboard. One dial, a handful of buttons, and promises of healthier fries, faster stews, crisper chicken, fluffier rice.
Its launch video doesn’t whisper, it shouts. A presenter dumps frozen fries into the basket, hits “crisp” on the screen, then flips to “steam,” “bake,” “sauté,” “slow cook,” all in under a minute. The pitch is simple: why clutter your countertop when one single machine can rule them all?
That’s the line that really stings fans of the classic air fryer.
On TikTok and Instagram, the reactions are instant and emotional. One clip shows a creator dragging her air fryer across the floor “in protest,” joking that the new cooker is “trying to erase her best friend.” Underneath, thousands of comments flood in from people who swear their air fryer changed the way they cook dinner on weeknights.
Another video goes the other way. A dad of three sets a timer on his old air fryer and the new multitasker. Chicken thighs go into both devices. He plates the results side by side, slices into them, and declares the multitasker the winner: juicier meat, crispier skin, less smoke.
The clip hits millions of views, and the comment section is pure chaos: betrayal, excitement, jokes about “appliance infidelity,” and a surprising amount of nostalgia for a gadget that only went mainstream a few years ago.
Behind the noise, there’s a very simple tension. The air fryer became iconic because it solved a specific problem: quick, crispy, less-oily food with minimal effort. The new cooker is trying to solve ten problems at once. For some people, that feels like liberation. For others, it sounds like complication dressed up as innovation.
➡️ Just one cup at the base of your raspberry bushes: your harvest will double
➡️ This overlooked habit during grocery shopping quietly increases your monthly budget
➡️ This simple dinner recipe tastes more thoughtful than it is
➡️ Psychology explains why some people feel deeply affected by words left unsaid
➡️ I made this creamy dinner and felt done for the day
➡️ This simple way of using paper towels can save you more than you think
Brands know exactly what they’re doing. Every feature is a nudge toward the idea that your kitchen is incomplete without a device that can sauté onions, slow-cook a stew, pressure-cook beans, and then finish everything with an air-crisp blast. The message is not neutral: your current air fryer suddenly looks old, limited, almost naive.
And that’s where the frustration kicks in. People don’t like being told their daily hero is obsolete.
How this nine-in-one gadget actually works in real life
On paper, the method is clever. The new cooker stacks functions instead of separating them. It has a sealed lid for pressure and slow cooking, a crisping lid or insert for hot circulating air, and a base that can sear or sauté like a pan. One pot, three layers of cooking logic.
A typical weekday move looks like this: toss chicken, broth, and spices into the pot, hit “pressure cook” for 12 minutes, then switch to “crisp” to brown the skin without dirtying another tray. The same setup works for cauliflower, potatoes, or tofu. You’re not just reheating; you’re cooking and finishing in the same vessel.
For time-poor home cooks, that combination feels almost magical when it works.
Real kitchens are less tidy than marketing. A student in Manchester tells me she used the multitasking cooker to batch-cook chili on Sunday, pressure-cook chickpeas on Monday, then air-crisp leftover potatoes on Tuesday. She loves that it frees up stove space in her tiny shared flat. But she also admits she had to read the manual three times before she dared pressurize anything.
A family in Lyon tried the nine-in-one as their “only” main cooker for a full week. They made yogurt overnight, a risotto that switched from sauté to pressure, and a whole roast chicken that finished on the crisp mode. The food was good, even impressive. The downside? The pot was always in use or in the sink, and when someone needed just a quick batch of fries, they missed the simplicity of dropping them straight into a dedicated air fryer basket.
Convenience, it turns out, isn’t just about features. It’s about friction.
The emotions behind the backlash are easy to decode. Air fryer fans feel their trusted shortcut is being mocked as “basic” by a more complex, more expensive newcomer. There’s also a psychological comfort in a single-purpose gadget: it does one job, you press one button, you get one predictable result. The new cooker asks you to trust multiple modes, layered steps, and a learning curve.
Manufacturers push hard on the idea of “replacing several appliances at once,” but kitchens aren’t spreadsheets. We get attached to the way we cook, the sound of a preheating fan, the ritual of shaking a basket halfway through. *You’re not just swapping machines, you’re swapping habits.*
And let’s be honest: nobody really uses all nine functions every single day.
Choosing sides (or not) in the air fryer vs multitasker battle
One practical way to cut through the noise is to start from a single dish you cook all the time. That repeat meal is your anchor. If your life is built around sheet-pan vegetables and oven fries, the pure air fryer still wins on simplicity: preheat, toss, crisp, done. If your staples are stews, curries, beans, and grains, a pressure-and-crisp combo suddenly makes deep sense.
Try this small experiment: for one week, write down what you actually cook on weeknights, not what you wish you cooked. Pasta, frozen nuggets, roasted veg, reheated takeaway. Then hold that list up against the nine functions on the box. You’ll quickly see whether that multitasking promise lines up with your reality or just your aspirational self.
The best gadget is the one that fits your actual Tuesday, not your imaginary Sunday.
A lot of frustration starts with expectations. People hope a nine-in-one will turn them into the kind of cook who slow-ferments dough, soaks beans overnight, and steams fish in parchment. Then they end up using it only for chips and frozen wings, and feel vaguely guilty. We’ve all been there, that moment when a shiny appliance becomes an expensive dust collector.
There’s also the trap of comparing the worst of one device with the best of another. An overstuffed, badly shaken air fryer basket will obviously lose to a carefully layered, crisp-finished dish from the multitasker. That doesn’t mean the air fryer is “obsolete,” it means technique still matters more than marketing.
The most honest approach is gentle: accept that you’ll make a few soggy meals before you learn which mode truly shines for you.
“People get so defensive about their gadgets,” says Léa, a home cook who teaches online air fryer classes. “But a machine doesn’t define you. If a nine-in-one gets you feeding your family without stress, it wins. If a tiny air fryer on a cluttered counter makes you actually cook instead of ordering in, it wins. The real rival is your own exhaustion, not another appliance.”
- Start from your spaceIf your counter is already crowded, trading three devices for one might genuinely feel like breathing room.
- Audit your real habitsList your five most common dinners, then match them to the functions you’d realistically use more than once a week.
- Test one “hero recipe” per modeFor each function you’re curious about, pick a single go-to recipe and repeat it until it becomes muscle memory.
- Keep one comfort gadget
- Ignore the hype, watch the clean-upRead real reviews about how hard it is to wash the pot, lid, and accessories. That detail shapes daily life more than wattage or presets.
What this fight over a cooker says about our kitchens
This strange drama over a nine-function cooker versus the humble air fryer is about more than crispy potatoes. It touches on how we balance time, money, space, and energy every day. Some people crave the promise of one smart machine handling everything. Others cling to a single trusty tool that asks little and delivers enough. Both reactions are rational.
Beneath the reviews and the rage comments, there’s a quiet question: how much complexity are we willing to invite into our evenings in the name of “better” food? For a parent racing between homework and bedtime, the answer might be very different than for a food-obsessed twenty-something in a studio flat.
If anything, this new cooker is forcing us to look straight at our real lives. Do we want one more button to press, or a new way to cook? Do we want to replace, or just add?
The next time you see that nine-in-one in your feed, you might not just be judging the machine. You might be quietly deciding which version of your daily life you’re ready to live with.
| Key point | Detail | Value for the reader |
|---|---|---|
| Clarify your real needs | List what you actually cook in a normal week before buying a new cooker | Avoid paying for nine functions you’ll barely touch |
| Test by “hero recipes” | Link each mode you care about to one simple, repeatable dish | Build confidence and routine faster, with fewer failed experiments |
| Factor in space and clean-up | Consider counter size, storage, and how many parts need washing | Choose a device that fits your daily rhythm, not just marketing claims |
FAQ:
- Question 1Is the new nine-in-one cooker really better than a standard air fryer?
- Question 2Does food actually taste different from a multitasking cooker?
- Question 3Can a nine-function cooker replace my slow cooker, rice cooker, and air fryer?
- Question 4Is it safe for beginners to use the pressure-cooking modes?
- Question 5What should I look at first: price, functions, or capacity?