Works well, but if you're a frying rookie ...
Pros:
Heats up quickly, cooks and holds heat well, can lower basket with the lid down.
Cons:
Poor design in basket height, closable lid only helpful in some instances.
The Bottom Line:
This fryer offers a good value and fries food well. It has a couple of design issues that are more annoying than fatal. Big step up from the stovetop.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
After years of frying on the stovetop and fiddling with my thermometer and dealing with the mess and smell, I decided to break down and buy a dedicated fryer. I didn't want to spend a fortune on something I'd only use once a month, and this fryer was priced fairly low.
Some quick takes after a few uses:
Construction: Doesn't feel flimsy, but it's not going to win any awards for solidity, either. The mechanism for lowering the frying basket into the oil seems durable enough.
Design: The handle that allows the dunking of food with the lid down is a godsend, as far as I'm concerned. There are some caveats to that ... mainly that the technique won't work for anything coated in a batter, because the batter will stick to the basket if you put your food items in before lowering the basket into the oil. You will NOT be able to pop the food off, so don't try it. Just add the batter-coated goodies directly to the oil with the top up. That's not exactly a design flaw, because any basket would do the same thing, but it does put a crimp into your master plan to not be directly exposed to the spitting oil when the food takes its bath.
The only other design issue that I have is the fact that the basket in the "up" position does NOT sit far enough above the oil at the "max" fill line, so the food is still touching the top of the oil when it's not supposed to be. Makes it hard to drain. You could use less oil, but good frying practice says the more oil you use, the less temperature it will lose to the food, and the less grease the food will absorb and the better it will taste.
Cooking: I have no complaints here. My beer-battered onion rings came out well (except for the batch that came out welded to the basket; see the warning about batter above). Nice and crispy, not too greasy. The machine heats up quickly, far faster than heating oil on the stove, and as far as I can tell, it holds its temperature well while cooking.
In sum, this fryer is a good deal, but it does have a couple of issues. Some complain about the lack of an "off" switch, but I don't really see this as an issue. There's a plug. Unplug it.
Oh, and the beer-battered onion rings? They're at http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Beer-Battered-Onion-Rings/Detail.aspx.
