Duo Nova Series Additionally, we found many meat-based pressure cooker recipes suggest significantly longer cooking times than Instant Pot suggests for the same cut of meat. In those situations, we generally found Instant Pot's recommendations to be more on point, with the longer cook times bringing about slightly drier and tougher results. The pressure release button makes depressurizing the cooking chamber feel much easier and less stressful. Helen is a freelance writer who specializes in kitchen appliances and has written for some of the biggest home-related titles around. Failure to register your product will not diminish your warranty rights. You will be asked to provide the store name, date of purchase, model number and serial number along with your name and email address. The registration will enable us to keep you up to date with product developments, recipes and contact you in the unlikely event of a product safety notification. By registering, you acknowledge that you have read and understand the instructions for use, and warnings set forth in the accompanying instructions. This might not sound like a big thing, but sealing rings are essential to the operation of an Instant Pot, and they need replacing fairly regularly. The most obvious advantage of the Duo Nova slow cooker is that it’s available in 4 different sizes, rather than the Duo’s 3. The Duo Nova is available in a larger 10 qt size, which wouldn’t be an option if you picked the Duo. Aside from the 7 base cooking modes on the Instant Pots, they are each packed with a range of additional features to improve the user experience and make food even tastier. For example, the Instant Pot Duo Nova and the Duo both have 13 “Smart Touch” customizable programs for bespoke pressure cooking. You can save all of your favorite dishes, and have them ready to go whenever you want. This means you can get something that is the perfect size for you, rather than an Instant Pot that you never fill up. Tidying up after cooking can sometimes take as long as making the food itself. If you have a busy lifestyle, then this is yet another thing that you have to make time for during your day. An Instant Pot can save you a ton of time, and give you more chance to rest and relax. It got hot enough to easily brown eve hearty veggies like carrots and made quick work of diced onions. We believe this ability is crucial; to effectively saute right in the pot vastly increases the number of meals you can make with only one dish to clean at the end. For the most part, we found the differences in cooking abilities to be minor between the models in our fleet. That being said, we thoroughly enjoyed the food made by the DUO Nova, with it earning superlatives in most of our cooking tests. The stainless-steel cooking pot doesn’t have handles for easy lifting, if you’d prefer handles consider another model such as the Instant Pot Pro or the Instant Pot Evo Plus. Fast, versatile, and convenient, with its bright, upgraded display and lid, the Instant Pot® Duo™ Nova is a rising star in the bestselling Duo™ family. Before we get into our comparison, it’s probably best to take a look at what Instant Pot actually is. Although the term “instant pot” is often used in place of products such as “slow cooker” or “pressure cooker”, Instant Pot is also the name of one of the most popular worktop cooker brands. The Instant Pot Duo is one of the electric pressure cooker models made by Instant Brands.