Philips 4000 Series (NA462) Stacked Dual Basket Air Fryer Review

Introduction

Stacked dual-zone air fryers are all the rage at the moment, as folks seek to maximise capacity while retaining as much countertop space as possible – the Philips 4000 Series (NA462) Stacked Dual Basket Air Fryer is the brand’s first air fryer in this style.

On paper, everything looks to be in order, with a pair of five-litre stacked baskets, a bevvy of cooking functions and a stylish look that could make it a strong rival to the likes of the Ninja Double Stack XL 9.5 Air Fryer SL400UK and the Cosori Turbo Tower Pro 10.8L Dual Air Fryer.  

At £269.99, though, it’s more expensive than both of those options, and will need to do quite a bit to come out on top as one of the best air fryers we’ve tested. I’ve been putting it through its paces for the last couple of weeks to find out.

Design and features

• Solid build quality
• Reasonable functions for family cooking
• Decently intuitive controls

This 4000 Series stacked air fryer is certainly compact, sitting at just 233 mm wide and 399 mm high, meaning it takes up roughly half the space across a countertop as a dual-basket side-by-side model.

At 469mm deep, though, it will still take up a fair amount of lateral space. Plus, since the baskets vent out the left side rather than the back, you’ll need to make sure they aren’t butted up too close to a wall on that side.

The black and gold accented colourway provides a bit of style to an otherwise quite non-descript box, and everything feels reassuringly sturdy. This air fryer tips the scales at 9.8kg, giving it a fair amount of heft for a smaller unit in some respects.

The two narrow baskets are evenly split in capacity, and the two five-litre baskets add up to a total of ten litres of capacity, putting it in the middle of the Ninja and Cosori options I’ve tested. Philips says it’s enough for this 4000 Series stacked air fryer to cook up to a kilo of chips, 24 chicken drumsticks or two whole chickens. It’s a good amount of space for family cooking. I’m also a fan of the fact that the baskets come with windows to make keeping an eye on food while it cooks nice and simple.

The preset functions here are based around specific foods rather than dedicated cooking modes, with five to choose from. You get a frozen chips setting, steak, fish, vegetables, and chicken, plus a reheat function and the customary sync and match options. The control panel sits above the baskets and is slightly angled – it’s easy to use, although in use, the lack of a proper minutes and seconds countdown is a bit of a shame.

Once you’re done with the fryer baskets and crisper plates, they can both be put in the dishwasher. I avoided this in my testing and instead chose to handwash them. Doing so is easy, and they were clean, dry and put back in a matter of minutes.

This 4000 Series stacked air fryer will go as high as 200°C, which is fine for most use cases, although it means your cooked food may lack the extra crispiness that a higher max temperature can bring. Both Cosori and Ninja’s equivalent options can go as high as 230°C and 240°C, respectively.

There isn’t any form of smart features or app control, as you’ll find on a variant of the Cosori Turbo Tower, plus dearer single-basket air fryers such as the Dreo ChefMaker or Typhur Dome 2.

Performance

• Reasonably even and crispy cooking
• 200°C top temperature can lead to longer cooking times

During my time with the 4000 Series stacked air fryer, I cooked a range of typical family foods to see how well it performs. In a general sense, I was happy with the results, although some items needed longer than in other air fryers I’ve used, such as frozen oven chips, and the array of functions is a little basic for the price.

Firstly, I cooked some breaded fishcakes at 190°C for 18 minutes on the Fish preset, and they came out well browned and piping hot after their time.

Similarly, some breaded chicken on the more ambiguous Chicken preset came out especially crispy in a very full basket after 20 minutes at 180°C.

Moving over to the Meat setting, I cooked a reasonably sized beef joint for a Sunday roast, which was put on 200°C for the first 20 minutes to brown and sear, before being turned down to 165°C for 40 minutes. The end result was a decent sear and a moist piece of meat that was slightly pink in the middle as desired.

To go with the beef, I used the Vegetable setting to cook cavalo nero and broccolini, which went on for 25 minutes at 180°C. Halfway through cooking, I added some more cavalo nero and sprayed it with oil and seasoned it with salt. The end result was crispy in places, but not necessarily everywhere.

I went back to the Chicken preset for some chicken cordon bleu at 180°C for 30 minutes, which came out crispy and piping hot.

The disappointment with this 4000 Series stacked air fryer was how it cooked some frozen oven chips, which were initially put in the basket and cooked for 25 minutes at the top temperature of 200°C on their dedicated setting. It ended up taking closer to 35 minutes for them to be ready, which feels a lot longer than other air fryers I’ve used.

Should you buy it?

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