Okay, so I broke down last month and bought myself one of these.

I'm a fan.

It definitely lives up to the promise on the convenience side. No oil to buy; no need to pre-measure the oil; no time for pre-heating oil; much safer than a regular fryer; no vat of oil afterwards to dispose of; and it cleans easily. The assembly was relatively manageable, you season the fryer once (like you would with a cast iron pan. After that, when you're ready to cook, you just connect the propane tank, and stick the bird in. When done cooking, the cleanup is minimal: if there's food mess left in the cooker, you just keep it on for 10 minutes and burn it off.

The big advantage I see over a regular fryer is that it's practical to use to cook just a single bird. I'd be hard pressed to use a regular fryer to cook a single turkey, given the cost and effort.

It's also portable - I could see bringing this to the parking lot for a football game tailgate.

I've used it 4 times so far: I've cooked a chicken, a duck, a turkey, and a pork loin. The general guideline is 10 minutes per pound, but you definitely need to use the (included) meat thermometer. The 5 pound chicken took 65 minutes, the 10 pound turkey was ready in 90 minutes. The time may also vary on whether the meat is starting at room temperature or fridge temperature.

The results are good.

The turkey was the best. I had rubbed a light coating of peanut oil on the skin before cooking. The result was a wonderfully crispy skin, maybe not quite as good as an oil-fired bird, but very close. The meat was moist throughout.

The chicken and duck were comparable in taste to oven-cooking. The pork loin had a nice char on the outside, but the meat was a bit dry: I may have over-cooked it.

There's one other big advantage compared to oil frying: since the meat is not sitting in oil, it produces drippings (into a detachable drip tray), so you can make gravy. And you can even stuff the bird if you want, also impossible with an oil fryer.

I'm happy with the purchase, and will be using this for all my turkeys going forward.