Hi TurboSS,
You are certainly down to a place where you are choosing between good options that are all in the good value range but have different tradeoffs. This is the place where I normally bow out of the picture except to give you a sense of the process I would follow because your personal “value equation” is much more important than my own preferences. There are none of these that IMO deserve or need to be “obviously” eliminated. While it’s tempting to go with the “commodity value” alone at this point … I would avoid the temptation to make these types of comparisons the main priority because when you look back on your mattress purchase years from now the smaller differences in price and/or value you are looking at from a “raw materials cost” point of view will be less important than how well you have slept over the long term and some of the other benefits of each choice … especially when the differences in price are not that significant.
Because of this … I would tend to draw up a list of all the differences between them (including price but not just price) and also make sure you have a list of all the components in each (fill in the gaps of the information you are missing). This would include the innerspring, the complete layering, and the details of the cover fabric and quilting. For example if one had a wool quilting or a higher quality fabric and another had a polyfoam quilting or a lower quality fabric then the wool for example could be a cooling and “value” benefit.
I think the first thing I would decide is whether you are more drawn to an innerspring/latex hybrid rather than a latex or foam core in terms of your preferences about how they each feel to you. To do this would involve spending time on both in all your sleeping positions and also flopping around, moving, and changing positions (simulating all the things you do on a mattress) to see which type of response you preferred. This would narrow down your choices to the same type and general construction of mattress. There is no “right or wrong” in this … only your preferences.
I would also “measure” each of them and assign a rating to their pressure relief and support qualities in all your sleeping positions. This will involve being completely relaxed and in a “pre-sleep” state to see which mattress gave you any hints of pressure relief or alignment issues or discomfort which may become amplified over the course of the night. Pay attention to more subtle “cues”. Which one allows you to be "completely relaxed and “let go” most easily and completely?
Finally I would assign a rating to all the other qualities of each mattress (such as those listed in post #2 here) including their likely ability to regulate sleeping temperature (based on the upper components and materials) and all the other objective (such as motion isolation if this is important to you), subjective (overall feel), and intangible benefits of each mattress. I would also include the benefits that are attached to dealing with each different manufacturer, the short and long terms services they provide, and/or having a warranty.
While I personally put more faith in the quality of materials than a warranty because the main reason people will need to replace a mattress (loss of comfort and support over time) are not warranty covered, there is always the smaller possibility of a genuine defect in a mattress which can lead to the need to repair or replace it. How important to you is price reduction vs the increased “risk” of having no warranty at all?
I know from personal experience that when you have a final list of good choices that the final elimination process can be the most difficult of all but I would avoid the tendency to become overanalytical and pay the most attention to the differences that are most important to you in practical and “real life” terms. If there is a substantial premium in one for a benefit that may be important to others but isn’t as important to you then this would have less importance in your personal “value equation”.
If you do this and eliminate choices one at a time … you should be able to get down to the final two and if there really isn’t any difference between these that you can identify (which their usually is) then it may boil down to either smaller differences in price (all else being equal), who you would prefer dealing with, some benefit that you are drawn more to, or even flipping a coin.
You are in a great position to be in but in the end the differences that are most important to you (or not) are the ones that I would use to narrow down your choices and make a final decision no matter how “ruthless” you may need to be :). There are no “bad” choices here IMO.
Again I would avoid the temptation to be analytical to the point of diminishing returns and pay attention to your “gut feel” in combination with more objective comparisons and tradeoffs.
I only wish that everyone that bought a mattress had narrowed down their choices to similar “good quality/value” options that you have available.
Phoenix