Not being new to pressure cooking first thing I can say is WOW. I have to confess that I had a stove top pressure cooker a long time ago and have not used one in a while. I have been out of the loop on the Instant Pot electric pressure cookers too which is a blessing in that I followed my instincts and bought the Ultra without making the mistake of trying to save a few bucks for the Duo series.

Like going to the car dealer for a new car, think of the Instant Pot line of cookers the same way., The Lux is the base model, the Duo is the model up from the base and the Duo Plus two models up from the base and the Ultra is the fully loaded model. Just like the car dealer, - more features means more money. With a street price of $149.00 for the Ultra, you can be patient and find them on sale from time to time. However, in any case $149.00 is a good price for what this cooker can do for you. If you use this cooker you will make up the cost of in saving on not eating out as much. The food you can cook is that good.

I have been cooking in this Instant Pot every day since I received it; sometimes twice a day. I have also made sure to make things that require me to use more than the manual setting that can be created under Pressure Cook or Ultra. Here are my Pros and Cons.

Pros:

• LCD display - one of the big things I hear in the discussion groups is “I pushed the button and it says “ON”, but I don’t know what is happening. The Ultra has a cooking graph that displays the progress through the preheat, cooking and warming phases so you know right where you are in the process. The LCD display is miles ahead of any of the control panels on any other model offered by Instant Pot.
• Venting, Quick release and the Pressure Regulator are improved. The vent/regulator now is controlled by a separate button - the Quick Release button, Push the button into the locking position and it pops the Vent up to release the pressure, turn the quick release knob and unlock the Vent so it drops back down and stops the pressure from releasing.
• Ultra Program You can set the exact Temp, as low as 104 degree and as high as 208 degrees.
• Set your Altitude and the programing on the Ultra will make the adjustments.
• Aesthetics - It is much more attractive with the LCD panel than the other models

Cons:

• Sealing ring in lid (silicone) picks up all the cooking smells and this ring stinks. The only solution I found to help take the cooking smell out of the silicone is to run the silicone ring through the dishwasher on the top rack laid flat. This seems to be a on going complaint from many Instant Pot owners
• The Manual is not very detailed. The “Water Test” as know by users is in the manual as “Initial Test Run” on page 14. The instructions for the “Initial Test Run” are incomplete. After instructing to rotate the dial to steam and set the time for two minutes, the manual forgets to tell the user to press the start button next. While the explanations under numbers 6,7 and 8 are important for Pressure Cooking, it is not clear to the user that those are not part of the Initial Test. Since users have adopted the lingo “Water Test”; Instant Pot would be better off changing the future manuals to instruct the “Water Test”. A little more information on the preset programing. The manual talks about making Yogurt, a few more pages like that on the other functions would be helpful.

This really is not a con, but just part of pressure cooking. Pressure cookers are moist cookers so any crispy dish you desired has to be done outside the Instant Pot, so for example Lasagna would be finished under the broiler to get that baked finish. Chicken skin does not come out the same as if it was roasted in the over. For all the other things you can do with your Instant Pot, these things are not a big deal.

Here are some of the items I have prepared with my Instant Pot Ultra and the setting used.

Pressure Cook - Apple Sauce, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Macaroni and Cheese, Slumgullion/ American Goulash
Soup Broth - Split Pea Soup using dry split peas
Meat/Stew - Crack Chicken, Honey Garlic Chicken, Cranberry Brisket, Dr Pepper Ribs, Beef Bourguignon, Bratwurst
Bean/Chili - Black Beans and Smoked Turkey Sausage
Steam - Sweet Potato
Sauté - vegetables and meat for dishes above
Porridge - Steel Cut Oats
Cake - New York Cheese Cake, Pumpkin Cheesecake, Giant Pancake
Egg - Hard Boiled Eggs
Yogurt - Greek Yogurt with 2% milk
Ultra - Sous Vide Tuna Steaks, Tempered Chocolate for candy making.

Many people try to figure out which model is the one for them. If you are a cook or like cooking and know how to cook many items, then you are going to want the flexibility of the Ultra. It is worth every penny and not worth trying to save a few bucks going into the Duo model. Even if you don’t not cook a lot or have a wide range of cooking skills, the LCD panel really takes the mystery out of the pressure cooking cycle which is not available on the Duo or Lux models. Maybe the extra settings will entice novice cooks to try new things.

Another thing I see commented in the forums is that people are afraid to start using their Instant Pot. Either they are afraid of pressure cooking in general or running the Instant pot is too complicated, so why try.

This is a computerized pressure cooker, The venting and pressure regulating system the Ultra is excellent. If you follow some basic rules then you will be cooking worry free for a long time.

1. Always have enough liquid in your recipe, The Instant Pot cannot generate pressure if there is not enough liquid.
2. Do not over fill the pot. The bottom of page 14 in your Ultra manual has a great explanation on how much you can put in your Instant Pot Ultra.
3. After each use, make sure to clean the lid and check to see if the venting system has any food that might block the venting system.

This is a computerized pressure cooker and that makes it light years ahead of your mother’s or grandmother’s pressure cooker. The flexibility that the programming creates for the user makes this one of the more versatile cooking gadgets you can have in your kitchen. The computer programing makes it a safer cooking system compared to a manual stove top pressure cooker.

My family is very typical, our kids have many after school activities, we get home late and no one wants to go through the hassle of cooking. We have a slow cooker, but if we forget to set it up in the morning before we leave the house, it still takes time to put together recipes when we get home. The Instant Pot has changed all that. The pressure cooking system cuts cook times dramatically. Additionally I don’t have to sit over the stove monitoring my cooking food. Once I put all the food in the pot, put the lid on and hit start, I can get many other things done around the house.

My family is eating out less (saving money) and eating healthier, making better food choices than when we are eating out. There are so many recipes out on the internet and in cookbooks that my family looks forward to coming home to eat because it is going to be something good and probably new to us.

Love it!
Instant Pot really out did themselves this new upgrade.
The home dial is so easy to use, just rotate and push for the program you want and customize from there.
The pressure release button is the game changer that I hoped they incorporated into their previous models and they did with this one. No more ducking steam - just a push of a button at the end of your program or 15 min natural release and your golden.
I already own one instant pot and thought it would be wonderful to have one for veggies & desserts and one for meats.
I purchased this on Sur La Table with a coupon and free shipping so that helped .

edit:
I wish I could give this 6 stars!
I finally used the sous vide technique by setting the ultra button to custom and sous viding a couple of beautiful choice ny strips i bought from Costco. The best tasting homecooked steaks I have ever eaten-Restaurant quality! I read seriouseats.com guide on sous vide steaks and proceeded from there. Im never going back to panfried except for the 50 sec. sear. Love this pot!

Caution--if you purchase the Ultra Instant Pot, please be aware that you must learn how to use the buttons because all the recipes for Instant Pots are geared toward the standard-not the Ultra-and the buttons on the Ultra are all different from the standard. It took me awhile to figure this out and I am still learning. I love my Ultra IP but the company did not do a good job of explaining the differences in the buttons--I had to search by googling and reading lots of blogs.

Doesn't work. It fails to reliably form a seal because the lid, pot and silicone sealing ring are too loose, causing leaks, as a result the pressure never builds up. This has happened 2 out of the 3 times that I have tried to use the Ultra. When this happens not only is the meal ruined but the energy that would have been used to build pressure goes instead into scorching the food at the bottom of the pot causing an incredible mess. This is the second Instant Pot that I have owned. My DUO60 would do this sometimes too but I stupidly bought a newer model thinking that this problem must have been fixed. The Ultra is actually worse. When this problem occurs the pot blindly goes through its cooking cycle unaware that the pressure was never raised.

I have been using stovetop pressure cookers for decades for both cooking and canning and never had difficulty getting a pressure cooker to seal. I keep my pressure cookers scrupulously clean so I know it its not pilot error. In my opinion this is just a very poor design. I will never purchase an Instant Pot product again.

If you think my experience is abnormal I encourage you to google "instant pot not sealing" to see how widespread this problem is. (Of course none of the 'fixes' suggested actually fix the problem.)

Finally, I found the user interface to be overly complicated and difficult to read unless I bend over to look at it straight on. I would gladly give up all the bells and wistles on an electric pressure cooker for rock solid basic operation. The only must have feature for me is a saute function to brown meats so I will keep searching.