I bought one at Home Depot when they had them on clearance for $50 a few years back. Hard to pass up at that price even if it was a novelty item. That being said, I think we have used it 2 or 3 times. I had to try the "ribs in an hour" to see if it will actually do it. Yes it will make 6 racks of baby back ribs in about a hour, but if you are used to "real" smoked ribs done low and slow the texture and taste is not the same. I've also done chicken and the results were similar. It's just not the same. So my shiny stainless Orion cooker now just sits as a side decoration to the rest of my cooking gear (the rest actually gets used regularly).
It does not use a great amount of charcoal as it cooks so fast. The directions say to use a 15lb bag of match light (or similar instant light charcoal, or I guess you could hose your own down with lighter fluid - I can't believe I even said that). You load the meat, close up the chamber , light it & forget it until you hit the time mark. The "cooking chamber" is sealed and it acts more like a convection oven. It works the same way that a cast iron dutch oven does (the old style camping type). The coals on the top stimulate the convection action in the cooking chamber. You just put some match light coals on the top and spread the rest around the outside of the cooking chamber. There is no direct smoke action from the coals, but if you put chips or pellets inside against the outer shell of the smoke chamber, it will smolder from the heat which comes through the chamber wall and give you smoke. It is 100% stainless, but with the open flames licking the outside of the cook chamber you will get discoloration after the first cook. Also with the sealed cooking chamber there is no way to put a meat probe inside. You cook by time alone and there is no way to make any heat adjustment so a pit probe would not help either.
That being said, if you get it for the right price, it would have it's uses. I could see it being handy on a tailgate outing where time was an issue or even on a RV, camping trip or day at the beach, but it is not ever going to compete head to head with low and slow. It's definitely a niche item IMO. I just can't seem to decide to get rid of mine, as I still see it having uses under certain circumstances. But for me, I would much rather fire up the
WSM and the BBQ Guru and do it the right way over real wood smoke and coals.
Here is a link to the Orion users manual on Home Depot's web site.
http://www.homedepot.com/catalog/pdfImages/e5/e5c88df4-69c6-499c-b77f-04b98c9d30ea.pdf
Not my photo but it should give anyone not familiar with the Orion and idea of what I'm talking about...