Ninja FG551 Foodi XL 6-in-1 Indoor Grill, S&D

I have owned the previous top-of-line grill model - the FG551 - for over a year, and that device transformed how I cook more than any other piece of kitchen equipment I've ever come across. It's just so easy to get perfectly consistent results when cooking meats, and when you're done, you can just toss the grate, pan, and screen straight into the dishwasher. It's not a charcoal/hardwood grill but you can get plenty of flavor with rubs and marinades. I stumbled upon this new model on Amazon while looking for a replacement lower pan for my FG551, as I'd used and washed the one that came with it almost every day for a year and it was starting to crack at the corners (still usable though). The big difference is that this new one does not rely solely on heat generated by the air fryer element at the top - the grill grate itself has an integral heating element, and when you install it onto the base, it makes electrical connections with two contacts that supply the current during cooking. I bought one immediately, and it has not disappointed! Compared to the previous model, unsurprisingly, this one cooks faster, which solves a major problem when cooking thicker cuts of meat. Previously, if I were cooking really thick steaks, I wanted to use higher temps to get better browning but couldn't do so because heating by air alone is just too slow. The grill grate is a fairly massive piece of cast iron, and the preheat does get it up to temperature so you can get grill marks/sear, but it can't retain that heat very long because again, air isn't an efficient medium to transfer heat from the air fryer heating element into the grate to keep it hot. So if I ran it on high (500F) like the manual recommends, I would get a crunchy, charred shell around a rare steak; the solution was to reduce temps as far as low (400F), depending on the steak, but the results were never as good as with thinner cuts. This new unit does not suffer that problem because the grate itself is heated from below, and I can now cook everything at higher temps across the board because they cook so much faster, even for really thick cuts or when using marinades that would have burned on the old model. Clean up is similar to the previous model, but you have one less piece to throw in the dishwasher - the heated grill grate replaces a roasting pan and a separate grate that sits inside it. The only issue I have with this new design is that the aluminum grate is not coated in any way on the bottom, leaving an exposed aluminum surface; anyone who has ever put a raw aluminum pan in the dishwasher knows that it will come out with a grey/black oxide layer on the surface, which is not toxic or harmful in any way, but is annoying because it gets on everything it touches. I just hold the grate by the edges, avoiding the bottom surface, and only ever handle it to transfer between the grill and the dishwasher that resides directly below it. Once installed in the base, that surface is not exposed in any way so nothing will come in contact with it. Honestly, small price to pay for how well this device works. Very happy with this new model, and I have retired the old one, which served me well. These are the class of the field when it comes to an indoor grill, and they are great air fryers too. I don't really use griddles so I can't comment on that part, but it is a pretty slick feature on top of everything else this thing can do.