Tower Air Fryers

Tower's air fryer line splits into three honest jobs, and picking the right one is mostly about how many people you cook for and whether you cook two things at once. Read More...

Single-basket Tower models suit one or two people and one-thing-at-a-time cooking: chips, a tray of chicken thighs, reheated leftovers. They're faster to clean and take up less worktop. Dual-basket models, badged Vortx Vizion or Vortx Elite depending on the year, give you two independent drawers with their own temperature and timer. The selling point is sync finish: start the slow item first, drop in the quick item later, and both end at the same time. If your weeknight default is "protein plus a side," dual is worth it. If you mainly reheat or do solo portions, single saves money and counter space.

Capacity figures on Tower units cover the whole drawer, not the usable food layer. As a rough guide, an 8 to 9 litre dual gives each drawer roughly enough for two adult portions of chips or four chicken thighs split across the two sides. An 11 litre dual stretches to family-of-four meals without stacking. The larger 14.5 litre and 18 litre oven-style units take a whole chicken, a small joint, or a tray of party food, and most include a rotisserie fork and shelves so they double as a compact second oven. Smaller single drawers around 5 to 7 litres are the right call for couples and small kitchens.

Tower's range names describe features rather than tiers. Vortx is the rapid hot-air system that does the actual frying, common to almost every model. Vizion adds a window and interior light so you can check colour without pulling the drawer open and dropping the temperature. Xpress and Xpress Pro are the multi-function variants, typically 5-in-1 or 7-in-1, that add bake, roast, dehydrate and grill modes alongside air fry. If you'll only ever air fry, you don't need Xpress. If you want one appliance that bakes a small cake, dehydrates herbs and grills bacon, the multi-function units earn their footprint.

Tower air fryers run on a standard 13 A plug and pull anywhere from 1500 W on the smallest units to 3040 W on the largest oven-style models. Higher wattage doesn't make food crispier, it just means the unit gets to temperature faster, which matters more on bigger cavities. Before you buy, measure the gap on your worktop and add a hand's width behind for hot-air clearance. Dual-drawer units are wider than tall; oven-style units are taller than wide. Black is the default finish, with white and latte options on a couple of the dual-basket lines if you want it to disappear into a brighter kitchen.

Tower still makes a traditional deep fat fryer at 2 litres for shoppers who genuinely prefer chip-shop results. Air fryers use a fraction of the oil and clean up faster, but a deep fat fryer wins on texture for battered fish and proper triple-cooked chips. They are not interchangeable, so pick the cooking style first, then the capacity.

Tower is one of the brands that discounts hardest around Black Friday, Boxing Day and the January sales, with a second wave during Amazon Prime Day in summer. If you're not in a rush, the Vortx Vizion dual models in particular tend to swing 20-30% during these windows.