Kitchen · Ninja · 2020
Ninja DZ201 Foodi 2-Basket Air Fryer
Two baskets with two fans, so the sides and the main finish together and the room gets loud.
Overall
7.8
out of 10
Axis scores
Kitchen is scored on these 5 axes. The total is their plain average — nothing is weighted.
- Performance — How well it does the core job
- Value — What the same money buys elsewhere
- Durability — Failure and fade reports past the one-year mark
- Ease of use — Setup, daily operation, cleaning, maintenance
- Quietness — Operating noise — a higher score means quieter
Specs
- Capacity
- 8 quart total, split as two independent 4 quart baskets
- Functions
- Air fry, air broil, roast, bake, reheat, dehydrate
- Temperature
- 105°F to 450°F
- Zone sync
- Smart Finish and Match Cook across both baskets
As published by the manufacturer. We didn't measure these ourselves.
Is it for you
Buy it if
- Cooking a main and a side that need different settings and want to land together
- Feeding three or four people without running the machine twice
- You cook often enough that a second zone earns its counter space
Skip it if
- Fan noise matters at all — this is the loudest machine in the group
- You want to roast one large item, which two four-quart baskets cannot take
- Counter runs are short, because it is wide rather than tall
Smart Finish is the reason to buy this and it is hard to appreciate from a feature list. Two foods that need different temperatures for different lengths of time start at different moments and stop at the same one, worked out by the machine. What that removes is not cooking time but attention — the running mental arithmetic about when to put the second thing in. A weeknight dinner stops being a sequence you have to manage.
The cost is noise, and it is not a small cost. Two zones means two fans and two heating elements, both running, in a housing that does nothing to damp either. RTINGS reviewed this model and owner reports agree on the conclusion: it is loud, louder than any single-basket unit in this comparison, and loud in a way that ends conversation in an open-plan room. If someone in the house takes calls from the kitchen table, this is the wrong appliance.
The eight-quart figure describes two four-quart baskets, not an eight-quart chamber, and the divider is fixed. No whole chicken, no large roast, nothing that will not fit in half the machine. Buyers who chose it on the capacity number find this out on the first Sunday they try to cook something big, and there is no workaround.
It is also wide rather than tall — roughly sixteen inches across — which is an awkward shape for a kitchen. Under a wall cabinet it consumes a whole run of usable counter, and it does not tuck into a corner the way a taller unit does.
Two coated baskets means two things to wear out instead of one, and owner reports mention the basket finish chipping over time. Replacements are sold per basket. Ninja’s coverage is short next to the premium brands, which is the usual trade for the capacity and the power.
Match Cook is the underused half of the feature. It copies one set of settings to both zones, which gives you the full advertised capacity for a single food in two shallow layers — closer to what the number on the box implies, and better crisping than one deep basket would manage.
Last updated . The scoring method is on how we rank.