Tech review: Sharp Healsio AX-1700VM(R) water oven has plenty of features

I have to confess it took me weeks to fall in love with the Sharp Healsio AX-1700VM(R) water oven.

Despite all the claims of its smart cooking features, it failed to give me the results I had hoped for - at least at the start.

One of the biggest selling points of the appliance, or so it is marketed, is its "all-in-one cooking" function, which claims to be able to cook various food items at the same time, no matter the size, weight or type.

All you have to do is press the large 'auto sensor cook' button, select the method of cooking - bake, steam, grill or stir-fry - and let the machine do the rest.

It claims to even be smart enough to adjust multiple heat and temperature settings on its own, which means that you can cook frozen items on the same tray as ingredients that are of room temperature.

If this magical feature sounds too good to be true, it is.

I tried to "all-in-one" bake frozen fish fillets alongside sliced carrots and sweet potatoes, and while everything was cooked through in about half an hour (the timing decided on by the oven), the texture of the food was not ideal. Both the sweet potato and fish were not evenly done, with some parts drier than the rest.

I imagine that this is a good fuss-free option for busy bees - just one button and you can set the table. Since I'm working from home though, I have plenty of time to tinker around in the kitchen and slowly experiment with recipes.

That is when I began unlocking all the fantastic and seemingly endless features of the machine.

The steam proof feature, for example, was very helpful in my bread making sessions. Rather than let the dough sit on top of the counter and wait for it to rise, which can take hours depending on the temperature of the room, the oven allowed me to keep it within a controlled 40 degrees Celsius environment for a set amount of time.

The crispy reheat feature was great too, for crisping up my soggy takeaway fries. In 10 minutes, a bag of fries came out hot, crispy, and perfect, while maintaining its fluffiness inside.

I used the grilled fish feature - yes, it can be that specific - to grill a piece of salted saba and it turned out to be almost as good as if I had eaten it in a Japanese restaurant. The best part is that you do not need to figure out the time it'll take to cook - the feature does that for you.

There are so many features for very particular uses that it is easy to miss them. It would have been helpful for all of the feature names to be indicated on the display screen, or at least printed on the side of the oven, so that one can refer to them easily instead of always having to flip through the instruction manual.

But that is a small gripe. If I have learned anything from using this piece of equipment, is that patience truly is a virtue.

- A myriad of features for very specific uses

- Names of the features are not displayed on the machine for easy reference

- Oven light not bright enough

Price: $1,759

Capacity: 31 litres

Weight: 25kg

Features: 5/5

Design: 3.5/5

Performance: 4/5

Value for money: 3.5/5

Overall: 4/5