Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer Oven review: fit for a dinner party

Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer Oven: Two-minute review

The Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer AF6000BK wants to be the only cooking appliance in your home – and subsequently one of the best air fryers – offering up a huge 11.4L of cooking space that can be split into two separate zones. That might not sound like a particularly new feature – considering there’s stiff competition from both Ninja and Instant – but rather than just providing two cooking zones, the Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer allows you to cook two small portions of food in each zone thanks to slide-out air frying and roasting trays.

As with other such air fryers, the Sunbeam has the ability to set the same temperature and time for both cooking zones, or different temperatures and times, but have both zones finish cooking at the same time to avoid anything going cold.

When you unbox this air frying creation from Sunbeam, you may feel a little overwhelmed by the number of accessories you get: there are two air-frying baskets, two air-flow trays, two small roasting trays, a large roasting tray and a large air-flow tray. That’s an awful lot more than what you’ll likely find in comparable models, and Sunbeam knows, because there’s a a pull-out tray underneath the main cooking oven for storing all six. The cooking baskets obviously won’t fit in here, so they’ll need to remain inside the air fryer when not in use.

Using the Sunbeam air fryer is intuitive and simple, with all buttons and controls clearly laid out and backlit when you’re setting a cooking program. Once you’ve selected a program and set the air fryer on its way, many of the buttons ‘turn off’ with just the temperature and time settings left visible. You can adjust either or both of these during cooking, which is a good feature to have as it means you don’t need to cancel and restart a program – something you have to do on other models, including the Instant Vortex Plus Versazone. Like an actual oven, the air fryer has a light inside, which comes on when you’re prepping a program. Unlike an oven, however, It turns off soon after, and you’re meant to be able to turn it on during cooking to check progress – but this didn’t always work for me.

Results are generally very good. During my time using the Sunbeam air fryer I cooked various foods including chicken tenders, arancini balls, chicken breast, burgers and salmon. On the whole, everything came out perfectly cooked, especially the tenders and arancini, which were returned with a beautifully crisp outer shell and hot, juicy inner. As for the chicken breast, I initially selected the chicken preset, but it came out a bit raw in the middle still, so I had to put it back in for a little while longer. Nevertheless, food was still cooked well and I appreciated not having to wait for the air fryer to preheat before putting food in.

But for all its positives, it must be said the Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer isn’t the easiest to manage in regard to maintenance. This is a big machine for starters, so you’ll need to make sure you have plenty of space on your kitchen counter to store it. And because of the many accessories, there’s a lot to keep clean. Admittedly, the various trays and baskets should be easier to place on a draining rack compared to a complete cooking basket, but it also means there are multiple pieces to clean instead of just one. You may find that a small sacrifice but, for me, it proved to be a bit of a hassle. I also found when cooking burgers that fat dropped through the air-flow trays onto the floor of the oven, resulting in more clean up. This can be avoided by placing the roasting tray on the bottom, but it would have been nice for Sunbeam to include a dedicated, removable tray for instances such as this.

Maintenance is really the only aspect of the Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer I could find fault with. So if you want an air fryer that can cook an awful lot of food at once, in a multitude of ways, it’s one you really should consider. This is especially true given its RRP of AU$299, which I would consider to be incredibly well priced given its feature set and performance.

Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer Oven review: Price and availability

• List price: AU$299
• Only available in Australia from a number of third-party sellers

Sunbeam is an Australian brand that hasn’t quite yet made it overseas, so you won’t find this air fryer anyone else out of the local market. It was announced and launched in June 2024 with a recommended retail price of AU$299, which makes it more affordable than comparable models, including the 8.5L Instant Vortex Versazone Air Fryer that has similar cooking functions but comes with an RRP of AU$399.

The Ninja Foodi FlexBasket Dual Air Fryer – our current pick as the best large basket option in our list of the best air fryers – gets closer to the Sunbeam in terms of total cooking space with 10.4L. It too has dual cooking zones but also costs AU$399 at full price.

On paper, the Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer is incredibly competitively priced and we’ve already noticed discounts at some third-party retailers since launch.

Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer Oven review: Design

• One large 11.4L cooking area or two 5.5L compartments
• Eight accessories including trays and baskets
• A large machine that requires a lot of space

The Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer is a big, boxy appliance that requires a fair amount of space on your kitchen counter – or a large cupboard if you plan to store it away when not in use. It measures 367(h) x 360(w) x 290(d) mm and weighs a rather heavy 11.5kg, which you may need to take into account if you plan to move it around your kitchen on a regular basis.

While it might be quite tall, Sunbeam has been clever enough to make use of the extra height and integrate multiple sets of runners so that you can slide two cooking trays in at one time, no matter if you’re using the full 11.4L of cooking space, or the two 5.5L cooking compartments. If you want to use the full cooking area, you’ll need to remove the middle partition. And, whereas most other air fryers use a pull-out cooking tray, the Sunbeam features two flip-down doors to provide access to the main cooking compartment. I found this useful, as it meant I didn’t need as much space in front of the air fryer to access the food inside.

Sunbeam supplies the Multi Zone Air Fryer with six cooking trays and two cooking baskets to cook multiple foods at once. While the trays can be stowed away in a small storage drawer at the bottom of the air fryer to help save on cupboard space, there’s no such built-in space for the baskets, which will need to remain inside the air fryer when it’s not in use .

There is also a small handle attachment for the cooking baskets to assist with getting them out, but it can’t attach to the cooking trays, which makes taking them out of the air frying a little cumbersome if you want to avoid burning yourself.

Because there are so many accessories, it makes cleaning up a little tricky, especially if you use multiple trays at once. If you have a dishwasher, then you can take some solace in the fact that all the accessories are safe to put in. What I did find during my testing though was that some fats from foods would drip onto the floor of the main cooking compartment, which required more cleaning. Compared to other air fryers that have a pull-out cooking drawer that can at least be run under a tap, the Sunbeam needs that little bit of extra care. The brand does mention in the user manual that the roasting tray can be placed at the bottom during cooking to collect oil and crumbs, but a dedicated tray would have been useful.

Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer Oven review: Performance

• No preheating required, just set and forget
• Excellent results for a variety of food types
• Clear display and settings can be changed during cooking

The Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer can cook food in six different ways: air fry, turbo crisp, roast, bake, grill and reheat. It also comes complete with four cooking presets for fries, chicken, meat and vegetables. Each function and preset is given a default cooking time and temperature, which are laid out in the user manual.

What I liked about the Sunbeam air fryer was that there was no preheating time needed before putting food in. When I wrote the Instant Vortex 9-quart Air Fryer with VersaZone Technology review, I commented that this became a little annoying, especially since it needed to preheat again immediately after a cooking program had finished. So it was great to not have to go through the preheating phase here – instead you can put your food in, select the time and temperature and you’re away.

As with many other air fryers, the Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer Oven can sync the cooking times and temperatures of both compartments, or have them finish at the same time with different settings. I used the latter option the most, as I would put a protein – such as salmon or chicken – in one compartment and some vegetables in the other. Setting the sync finish feature was incredibly easy as it’s just a matter of pressing the sync button after choosing the settings for the individual compartments.

On the whole, food was cooked perfectly and, in many cases, crispier than what I’d experienced when using the Instant Vortex VersaZone air fryer. And because I cooked similar foods for similar times, but didn’t have to wait for the appliance to preheat, I was tucking into my food quicker than what I was used to.

I also tried using the Meat preset to cook a couple of chicken breasts. By default, this setting changes the temperature to 230˚C and sets the time to 15 minutes. I left these settings as they were to see how well they worked – one piece came out well-cooked, but the other, slightly larger, chicken breast was still raw in the middle. I put it back to air fry for an extra 10 minutes and it was fine to eat. There is a default preset for Chicken, which sets the temperature to 170˚C and the time to one hour, so this is more for a full roast chicken as opposed to a couple of smaller pieces.

Another aspect of the Sunbeam air fryer I liked was that I could adjust temperature and time settings during cooking. I found when testing the Instant air fryer that I would have to cancel the cooking program, adjust the settings and start it up again (complete with preheating), so to be able to make adjustments on the fly was much appreciated.

Vegetables are often my kryptonite when using an air fryer – I just can’t ever seem to not totally blitz them to the point where they’re devoid of any juice or flavour. I hoped the Sunbeam air fryer would finally come to my aid with its Vegetables preset option. To try it out, I inserted the two full-size cooking trays with broccoli, carrots and asparagus, and let the program run for its default 15 minutes at 170˚C. It seemed I was out of luck once more, as yet again the veg was overcooked. I am prepared to put this down to my lack of vegetable cooking knowledge, as I’ve experienced similar results with other air fryers. But in my opinion, 15 minutes is too long for a default preset time.

Should I buy the Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer Oven?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider

How I tested the Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer Oven

Testing the Sunbeam Multi Zone Air Fryer Oven meant I was given the arduous task of having to eat a lot of food. I used it to cook a variety of meals over a number of weeks, including chicken breasts, arancini, salmon and vegetables. I mainly used the Air Fryer cooking function and the Sync Finish feature, as I found these to be the most useful.

I also used the dedicated Meat and Vegetable presets to see how it stacks up against other air fryers I’ve previously tested.

Read more about how we test

[First reviewed September 2024]