Magic Bullet 2.5-litre air fryer review

Our only gripe is that the times on the timer button are hard to read. Otherwise, this is a good-value machine that's built well and runs quietly, and the cooked food is excellent.

Read our full guide to the best air fryers.

How easy is the Magic Bullet air fryer to set up?

The air fryer weighs just under 4kg, so it's light. At just under 38cm wide, it can also be easily moved in and out of a cupboard or drawer without taking up too much space. But, it does look good enough to keep on the counter, with its shiny black casing and handle.

There’s a large timer dial that ranges from 1-60 minutes on the front and a small temperature dial that ranges from 0-200C on the top, alongside six handy cooking times for chicken, veg, fries and more. This makes it unfussy and uncomplicated to use.

How easy is it to use?

Though small, the Magic Bullet fry pot has space for 2.5 litres of food – a good amount of chips, veg, sausage or burgers. It's an excellent fryer for smaller households.

The fryer is up and running almost immediately. You can practically start cooking without a manual, it's so easy to use. Still, we decided to give it a quick warm-up to check the controls, and discovered it heats up rapidly and is surprisingly quiet.

We struggled a little to get a precise time on the timer knob, which has small dots marking every two-minute interval. Some may struggle to see this, but it's also hard to see the alignment mark on the knob, so we felt we were making more of an estimation. The temperature dial, however, was much easier, with marks at every 20-degree interval.

The fryer is relatively light, so moving it on the counter was easy, despite the silicone stoppers on the feet of the fryer. Two of these fell out the first time we used it, but we popped them back in and they then stayed in place. For extra safety, we put the fryer on a lightly damped tea towel, which stopped any movement.

Cooking results

Magic Bullet promises 360-degree convection technology, with the fryer able to crisp up fries, breaded chicken, veg and more, all while using less oil. We tested thin fries and thick, hand-cut chips that had been rinsed, dried and lightly sprayed with oil.

The fries were crisp but not dried out. We sprayed the fatter chips with more oil halfway through cooking as they had started to dry out, but this worked well. Both the colour and texture were good. The fryer is 1300W, and we were suitably impressed with the even colour of the fries.

Magic Bullet 2.5-litre air fryer conclusion

This simple, straightforward fryer should not be ignored just because it doesn’t come packed with whistles and bells. The simplicity, ease of use and quality of cooking will appeal to many, especially those in smaller households, students or those whose kitchen counter space is at a premium. It's also an excellent choice if price is a consideration.

We especially liked that the Magic Bullet is a great-value machine that runs quietly. The cooked food is excellent. The only thing that would improve the Magic Bullet is sorting the unsteady timer knob.

Magic Bullet 2.5 litre air fryer specifications

Food capacity: 2.5 litres
Power: one cooking drawer; 1300 watts
Weight: 3.94kg
External dimensions: 37.79 x 32.29 x 30.6cm
Safety features: auto-pause upon removing the drawer
Guarantee: one-year limited warranty
Pre-sets: 12

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