Philips Airfryer 5000 Series Review – Steam That Actually Earns Its Keep

Philips Airfryer 5000 Series Review

Product Name: Philips Airfryer 5000 Series (NA543/00)

Product Description: Philips Airfryer 5000 Series review: a month of testing, real Steamfry and SteamClean results, and whether the RM1099 price is justified.

Brand: Philips

Offer price: 1099

Currency: MYR

• Appearance - 8.8/10
  8.8/10
• Efficiency - 7.6/10
  7.6/10
• Features - 7.7/10
  7.7/10
• Materials - 8/10
  8/10
• Performance - 7.9/10
  7.9/10
• Portability - 7.6/10
  7.6/10
• User Experience (UX) - 6.8/10
  6.8/10
• Value - 6/10
  6/10

Summary

The Philips Airfryer 5000 Series backs up its steam claims with real results, Steamfry and SteamClean both hold up under a month of actual testing, and the build quality and quiet operation stand out at this price. What holds it back is how much of that steam potential sits behind a separately sold accessory, plus an icon-only interface that works against Philips’ own ease-of-use pitch. At RM1099, it’s a genuinely capable airfryer, provided buyers understand exactly what’s included before they pay full price.

Overall

7.6/10

7.6/10

Pros

+ Steamfry genuinely delivers a crisp exterior with a soft interior, not just a marketing line
+ SteamClean actually loosens residue, cuts real scrubbing time
+ Stainless steel, PFAS-free basket outclasses the glass inserts common at this price
+ Quiet operation (65 to 70dBA), cool-touch shell during use, no preheat needed
+ Favorites, shake reminder, and keep warm add genuine day-to-day convenience
+ HomeID app is simple enough to use without a learning curve

Cons

– Icon-only touch panel with no text labels undercuts Philips’ own ease-of-use pitch
– Perforated basket can’t retain liquid, ruling out soupy or steamed dishes
– Baking tray needed to unlock the full steam range is sold separately, not included
– Base basket’s flower-shaped bottom rules out standalone dish use
– Advertised 7.2L capacity refers to the base pan, not the basket’s real usable volume

• Shopee

Air fryers stopped being interesting a while ago. Every brand has one, most do the same brownish-crispy trick with a fan and a hot coil, and the only real differentiator left is how big a box you’re willing to give up on your counter. The Philips Airfryer 5000 Series changes that formula by pairing a conventional airfryer with an actual steam function, launched in Malaysia as the NA543/00 with a 7.2L capacity and a touchscreen built around 9 food presets across three modes, steam, airfry, and steamfry, which Philips markets as 21 ways to cook. I’ve had this unit on my counter for close to a month now and put it through six cooking sessions across its different modes to find out if the steam function holds up outside of Philips’ own marketing, or if it’s a feature that looks good on a spec sheet and does very little in practice.

Unboxing Philips Airfryer 5000 Series

The box contains the airfryer unit itself, a pullout tray with a removable perforated basket, a water tank for the steam function, and the quick start guide. One thing worth flagging early: a baking tray is sold separately as an accessory and wasn’t included with this unit, something we’d recommend picking up. More on why that matters later in the review.

Specifications

Design & Walkaround

At 7.2L, this is bigger than the average airfryer, but the footprint earns its keep. It looks genuinely elegant on a countertop, helped by a blue and silver finish that reads more premium than the price tag might suggest. The touch panel itself is responsive and easy enough to navigate, with a live temperature readout and an interior light that lets you check on food through the viewing window without opening the basket and losing heat.

The basket deserves its own mention. Philips uses stainless steel here, coated with a PFAS-free non-stick layer, instead of the glass insert that a lot of airfryers in this price range ship with. That choice matters more than it sounds. Glass is heavier to lift in and out with food inside, it’s more prone to chipping or cracking if it knocks against a sink or another dish during cleanup, and repeated heat cycling from hot to cold over months of use tends to wear on it faster than metal. A coated steel basket handles that daily abuse better, stays lighter in hand, and the PFAS-free coating means Philips isn’t leaning on the older nonstick chemistry that’s drawn scrutiny in cookware generally. It’s a small spec-sheet line, but it’s the kind of decision that shows up in how the unit actually holds up after prolonged usages.

Sitting at 46cm depth, if your cabinet happens to be 45cm in depth (like mine) and you need to shut the door, you might have a little bad luck there. Despite the blunder, this wasn’t a deal breaker at all. For a standard 60cm cabinet, this Philips Airfryer 5000 Series was designed marvelously. Not only you have ample space, the recommended 15cm distance from wall holds up perfectly too.

Performance & Cooking

Six cooking sessions over a month is enough to move past first impressions and start noticing patterns. The most memorable result came from a dish my wife created, which we’ve taken to calling Mahwish Chicken, cooked using the standard airfry mode and documented on video for anyone who wants to see the actual result rather than take our word for it. The chicken came out evenly browned on the outside and fully cooked through without needing to flip or check on it midway, which is standard airfryer territory, nothing steam-related about that result specifically, but it confirmed the basic fundamentals are solid before testing the feature this unit is actually built around.

Steamfry is where things get more interesting, and where testing had to actually prove something rather than just describe a spec. The mode injects steam alongside the hot air circulation instead of running one after the other, and on paper that sounds like it should soften whatever crispness the airfrying side produces. Testing it on French fries said otherwise. The exterior came out crisp and browned, the kind of texture you’d expect from a deep fryer rather than an air fryer, while the interior stayed soft and almost spongy rather than drying out the way fries sometimes do after extended hot-air exposure. Going into this test genuinely skeptical that steam and hot air together was more spec-sheet novelty than functional upgrade, this is the result that changed that assessment. It isn’t a marketing claim being repeated back here, it’s what came out of the basket.

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Wanting to push the steam function further, the next instinct was to try something that actually needs retained liquid, a steamed fish, or a rice-based dish, the kind of cooking steam ovens are typically used for elsewhere in a kitchen. That’s where a real limitation showed up. The perforated basket that comes standard with this unit doesn’t hold water or sauce, everything drains straight through, which rules out an entire category of steam cooking the hardware is technically capable of. This is exactly where the separately sold baking tray we flagged back in the unboxing becomes relevant, without it, the steam function is effectively limited to steamfrying and straight steaming of solid foods, not the fuller range of steam cooking the feature name implies.

Beyond the food itself, the operational details are worth recording plainly. Measured with a sound meter during operation, the unit sat between 65 and 70dBA, quieter than any airfryer used for comparison in this household. There was no detectable smell during any session, no preheat cycle required before loading food, and the outer shell stayed cool enough to touch comfortably while the unit was actively running, a detail that matters more than it sounds for anyone cooking in a kitchen with kids around. The live temperature readout on the panel was taken at face value rather than independently verified against a probe thermometer, but the consistency of results across six sessions suggests it’s tracking accurately rather than just displaying a number for show.

Taken together, six sessions is a small sample against a month of ownership, but it was enough to separate what Steamfry actually does from what the packaging claims it does, and enough to expose where the hardware’s limits sit before a single word of criticism gets written.

SteamClean got tested too, and it earns a similar verdict to Steamfry. Running it leaves the interior walls wet and slightly moistened rather than doing any scrubbing on its own, but that moisture is enough to loosen baked-on residue to the point where a quick pass with a nonstick-safe spoon clears it without real effort. Like Steamfry, this is a feature that could easily have been a checkbox on a spec sheet and instead does something noticeable in daily use.

The Good

Steamfry is the standout, and it earns that position through actual testing rather than assumption. Injecting steam alongside the hot air circulation produces french fries with crisp, browned exterior and soft, almost spongy interior, the exact contrast the feature promises on the box. Having approached this function with real skepticism that steam and hot air together was more novelty than substance, watching that texture come out of the basket consistently was the moment that assessment shifted. This is the feature that justifies the steam branding on the unit.

Secondly, SteamClean earns its own praise for doing something most self-clean features on kitchen appliances don’t, actually work. Running the cycle leaves the interior walls wet and loosened rather than fully clean on its own, but that’s enough for baked-on residue to lift with a quick pass of a nonstick-safe spoon instead of the usual scrubbing an airfryer basket demands after a greasy session. It’s a small feature that saves real time every time it gets used.

Build quality holds up well against the price bracket this unit competes in. The basket is stainless steel with a PFAS-free non-stick coating rather than the glass insert common on airfryers at this level, and that choice shows up in daily handling. It’s lighter to lift with food inside, more resistant to chipping around a sink full of other dishes, and better suited to repeated heat cycling over months of use than glass tends to be. The blue and silver exterior finish also reads more premium than expected, elegant enough to stay out on a counter rather than get stored away between uses.

Operational quietness is the kind of detail that only becomes obvious with daily use, and this unit delivers there. Measured with a sound meter, it sat between 65 and 70dBA during operation, quieter than any other airfryer used for comparison in this household. The outer shell also stays cool enough to touch comfortably while actively running, a genuinely useful detail in a kitchen with kids around, and there’s no preheat cycle to wait through before loading food, food goes straight in and the timer starts.

The touch panel includes a favorites button, letting a preferred combination of preset, mode, time, and temperature get saved instead of re-entering the same settings every session, useful for anyone who finds one or two go-to recipes and sticks with them.

A shake reminder button is available for recipes that benefit from a mid-cook shake or flip, a small addition that removes the guesswork of estimating when to check on food without needing to interrupt the cycle to look.

The keep warm function holds finished food at serving temperature without continuing to cook it further, genuinely useful for anyone juggling multiple dishes and trying to get everything to the table at the same time rather than serving food that’s gone cold waiting on something else.

The HomeID app rounds out the experience without adding friction. It’s straightforward enough that it doesn’t demand a learning curve, recipes and instructional videos are accessible without digging through menus, which matters given the accessibility gap on the panel itself, more on that shortly.

The Bad

The touch panel’s biggest weakness is that every preset and mode is represented by an icon with no text label anywhere on the interface. That’s a real problem given Philips is explicitly positioning ease of use as part of this unit’s appeal. Icon-only navigation assumes a level of familiarity that not everyone has, and the demographic that benefits most from genuine ease of use, older users in particular, is also the demographic least likely to intuitively read symbols over words. If ease of use is the pitch, this panel undercuts its own selling point.

The perforated basket that ships standard with this unit can’t retain water or sauce, everything drains straight through. That rules out an entire category of steam cooking the hardware is technically capable of, steamed fish, rice-based dishes, anything that depends on liquid staying in contact with the food during cooking. The Steamfry and Steam functions work well within their lane, but that lane is narrower than the feature name suggests.

The accessory that would solve that limitation, a baking tray, isn’t included in the box. It’s sold separately, which means the full range of what this unit’s steam function could theoretically do isn’t available out of the box at the RM1099 price point without an additional purchase.

The base basket itself has a flower-shaped bottom, which rules it out as a standalone dish base for cooking anything that needs a flat, even surface. It’s a design choice that makes sense for airflow and steam distribution, but it does mean you can’t treat it as a general-purpose pan substitute the way the perforated basket sometimes gets used.

The 7.2L capacity figure Philips advertises refers to the base pan, not the perforated basket that actually holds food during a normal cook. That distinction matters because it’s the perforated basket’s real usable volume that determines how much food fits in a single batch, and that number is smaller than 7.2L suggests. It’s not a fabricated spec, but it’s a number that oversells what a single cooking session can realistically hold.

Verdict

Steamfry and SteamClean are the two features that make this unit worth discussing at all, and both hold up under real testing rather than existing as spec-sheet decoration. Build quality backs that up, a stainless steel basket that outlasts the glass inserts common at this price bracket, quiet enough to run without notice, and cool enough to touch mid-cycle.

The friction sits in how much of the steam function’s full potential is actually accessible out of the box. A perforated basket that can’t retain liquid, no included baking tray to unlock the wider range of steam cooking, a base basket shaped in a way that rules out standalone use, and a headline 7.2L figure that describes the pan rather than what you can realistically load in a single batch. None of these break what’s already there, but they do mean the unit arrives narrower in practice than its spec sheet and marketing suggest.

At RM1099 retail, that gap matters more than it would at a lower price point, though this unit has also been seen discounted to around RM799 and oftentimes even lesser, which changes the calculation meaningfully in the buyer’s favor if caught at that price. Full price is asking a genuine premium for a feature set that needs an extra purchase to reach its full range. The icon-only touch panel is worth a final mention here too, since Philips is selling ease of use as part of the pitch, and the panel doesn’t fully deliver on that for every user, particularly for anyone less comfortable navigating by symbols alone.

This is a legitimately good airfryer with a steam function that does what it claims, bought into with clear eyes about what’s included and what isn’t. Anyone planning to use it for standard airfrying and Steamfry work will get real value out of it. Anyone expecting the full range implied by “steam” without budgeting for a separate accessory purchase should adjust that expectation before buying, especially at full retail price.

Despite the shortcomings, this is one Airfryer Steamfryer that is definitely worth the keep! One that earned our most honored Pokdeward Gold!