Bona fides: I have been cooking for over 50 years. I got my first pressure cooker in 1974. That's a long enough time to allow the development of strong opinions. I had an Instant Pot and loved it. My opinion of ihe Instant Pot Duo Crisp is that it's a piece of junk which has no place in a serious kitchen.
The control panel is unreadable unless you bend down and look straight at it; this is an annoyance but easily fixable with a Sharpie.
The pressure cooker works fine. It was better once I learned that the quick release lock cannot be engaged while the lid is on the cooker. The saute function works fine, as long as you stir the food to keep it from sticking on the hot spots.
The air fryer basket is very poorly designed: if you use both levels, you cannot turn food over on the bottom tier without removing the top rack, and the top rack is designed to spill its contents all over the counter when it is removed. It would have been really helpful if there was any information in the manuals about how much oil to use. Just saying "uses less oil" is meaningless. It took over 30 minutes to 'air-fry' 12 chicken wings starting with fully-thawed, refrigerated meat.
The sous vide never got above 140F, when it was set to 200F. Same with the slow cooker; it gets just warm enough to breed salmonella cultures.
I have not and will not try out the roast, bake, or broil functions because I expect that would only result in me having to salvage or discard ingredients. The user manual guidelines are completely useless for these functions.
The user manual was obviously written for someone who cannot remember for five minutes that CAUTION: Pressure Cookers Get Hot! and has to be told every time that the appliance won't work if it's not plugged in.
These are the most significant complaints I have about this artifact. I will be discarding it as soon as I can afford a different pressure cooker.
Learn from my mistakes, fellow cooks.
I purchased this item after hearing everyone in my office talk about how much they love their instant pot or air fryer. So, I figured this would be the best of both worlds. After receiving the unit I realized that the majority of my needs would be for the air fryer. So I started making chicken fingers and french fries. After a few uses I noticed that the air fryer basket (which is coated in non-stick material, a toxic chemical) had a bunch of places where the non stick coating was missing. Upon further inspection I noticed it is chipping off and was most likely consumed by me while eating my chicken fingers. This is terrifying and I immediately reached out to the manufacturer, who told me they will ship me a replacement when they have one. I have waited over a month and this monstrosity of a kitchen appliance just sits on my counter taking up a ton of space. I wrote into Instant pot again and they offered me a modest discount a second instant pot product. Stay away from this product for air frying, it may have harmful effects on your health. Also, it has a large footprint and it comes with two big tops, so make sure you have the room for storing it.
Update:
After 1.5 months of daily use, I have to say this is the best cooking device I’ve ever used. Everything works just as advertised. If you have to buy only one thing for your kitchen, this is it. I increased the rating to 4, 1 off because of the horrible airfryer basket issue described below. If you need a replacement for the basket, look up on amazon the “air fryer replacement basket 3.7qt for power gowise usa air fryer”. I read a review saying that it fits the instant pot duo crisp so I bought it and yeah it does. I’ve used that one constantly for a month without a single scratch. This is my real experience, not paid review.
I like instant pot a lot but I gotta say the airfryer basket is such a disappointment. I only used wooden tools and soft sponge with it but after only 2 wash the basket already got scratched. There’s another bigger scratch than the one shown here but I’m too lazy to take a new photo. I asked the customer service but they pointed me to Amazon seller (after sending them all photos and details) which provides information to basically tell me to contact Instant Pot again. Great machine, bad basket, not impressed with customer service so far.
I was so excited to buy this product. It had been on my "saved for later" list for a long time. I was especially excited because it was an 11 in one product. It was a bit bigger than I wanted, but it was the only one that was an 11 in one product. Before I arrived I had printed out at least 50 recipes to try. My first disappointment was that some of the accessories that came with it, clearly were meant for a smaller model, and when I brought it to the attention of the seller they asked for a whole lot of things that a non tech savy senior citizen was in no position to do.
Then, I was disappointed when the cooking surface was so small. It was an 8 quart instant pot but the cooking surface was clearly no bigger than a 4 quart. They clearly went UP rather than out as they increased capacity.
My final disappointment was when it would not property pressurize and when half of the control panel functions wouldn't work. I returned it. I cook a lot and I am going back to the tried and true methods.