If the brand you buy is important to you, our best advice is to spend some time writing up your own list of ideal brands. That way when you come to the point where you’re comparing product options you can filter to only show the products from brands in your list. LESS FAT: Little to no oil is required, all while keeping the same great taste, so you lose the fat not the flavour The text on the temperature gauge is very small and hard to read, even in a bright kitchen. (Image credit: Future) I wouldn't recommend the Tower T17023 for a family, if you're looking for an air fryer to feed the whole street you'd be better off with one of Tower's 12-litre models. However, if you're a singleton or a couple who want to reduce their energy bill and their fat intake, the Tower might be the right option.

Rapid air circulation creates crispier textures across your mealtime favourites, 30% faster than a conventional ovenTower is an iconic British brand boasting over 100 years of quality in manufacturing and design excellence. Tower is the UK’s fastest growing SDA & Housewares brand loved by millions of households. The Dual Zone’s Max Crisp function is also worth shouting about, as it cooks thinner frozen foods such as chips, onions rings, and nuggets in a fraction of the time it would take a standard convection oven. During testing, one portion of frozen potato lattices came out perfectly crisp and golden in just six minutes, compared to the recommended 15-minute oven cooking time stated on the bag. This air fryer can also bake, roast, dehydrate, and reheat, making it a versatile tabletop multi cooker. Good models will come with dishwasher-safe removable parts and a pull-out loading tray that slots into the machine. For easy cooking from the get-go, look out for models with preset functions for popular dishes too. These work out the timings and temperatures for you.

If you want to learn a little more about how air fryers work, and what benefits they have compared to a standard oven, then have a read of our handy explainer here: What is an air fryer? How much should I spend? The results with the Tower Vortx were mixed. Our frozen fries –McCain Gastropub ones –were an absolute triumph, perfectly cooked in 20 minutes with beautifully fluffy interiors and crisp, consistent browning on the outside. Those chips have their own coating, so we air-fried them without any oil. If you do the same, note that the coating does leave a pool of oil at the bottom of the tray, so be careful opening it.Most also come with a recipe booklet for culinary inspiration, which is ideal if you’re new to air frying. The next step for us was to look at all of the products that fall within the Fryers category, of which we found 31 products at Argos. So we pulled together all of the prices of these products to analyse the average prices as well as finding the cheapest and most expensive options.

SAVE UP TO 50% ON ENERGY: Cooking food 30% faster, Tower Air Fryers use less power than conventional ovens. Save up to 50% on your energy by simply switching to Air Fryer cooking Its compact dimensions will fit neatly into smaller kitchens or onto already crowded countertops, and the controls couldn’t be simpler: two physical dials allow you to set the cooking temperature between 80ºC and 200ºC and set a timer of up to 30 minutes.The 360-degree stirring paddle is incredibly handy and ensures food is evenly and consistently cooked without the need for shaking your food mid-cooking cycle. Nine automatic cooking functions take most of the guesswork out of air frying but there’s still an option to manually set the time and temperature if need be. What’s more, if you’re using these presets, the Genius+ (and every other Genius model in the range) automatically adjusts the temperature and stirring paddle during cooking so your food isn’t overcooked.

The first is brand. Looking at the brand of the product is often a really good indicator for judging product quality. For example you’d expect a much higher quality product from a brand known for providing excellent quality than you would from an unknown or even a budget brand. Price is another really important factor for analysing the quality of Tower T17023 Compact Air Fryer vs other products in the Fryers category. It’s obvious, but you will need to set your expectations of quality based on your budget and the price of the product you’re looking at, against the price of alternatives. As you can imagine, pricing is one of the most important factors of any purchasing decision. We can find the perfect product for our needs, that fits the brief in every single way. But if it doesn’t fit our budgets, we simply can’t (or at least shouldn’t) buy it. Despite being a budget-friendly option, the T17023 was no slouch in testing, cooking oven classics such as spring rolls and hash browns to a commendable crispness and performing solidly when tasked with more delicate items like meat and vegetables.

Marrying top-notch value with solid performance and easy to use controls, Tower’s 2.2l air fryer is a great budget, compact option

VORTX TECHNOLOGY: Rapid air circulation creates crispier textures across your mealtime favourites, 30% faster than a conventional oven CAPACITY: Family-sized air fryer with a large 4.3-litre capacity lets you serve up enough portions to go around the whole table The next step after looking at products in the same category, was to look at products from the same brand, Tower.