I am in the market for a king mattress. We already have a queen tuft and needle 10", which will now go to the guest room. That mattress was purchased without much research, and just based on Amazon reviews. However, we have been happy with it, and we get as good a sleep on it as on a few high end hotel beds we have slept on recently.
For the next mattress, I was again resorting to review comparison, since that is how I buy most products. I was fortunate to come across your website and learn about the different materials, the core and support layers, and how to ensure there are no weak links. Based on what I read, I wanted to purchase a mattress that had a latex comfort layer. For my budget (around $900), the DreamFoam seemed to be the only one. But the reviews on Amazon suggest that it is difficult to get the firmness right. I wouldn’t want to pay the $100 return shipment fee in that case.
After seeing Phoenix’s post with additional information on T&N’s new design that suggested an improvement in their comfort layer polyfoam, I am thinking of going with their 10" king, since we are happy with their earlier model queen. What do you think?
I would be very cautious about using reviews as a way to choose a mattress because in the large majority of cases they won’t provide any meaningful information about whether a mattress is a suitable choice for you or the durability of the materials inside it (see post #13 here). Other people’s experiences on a mattress can be very different from your own and the only way to assess the durability of a mattress is by knowing the type and quality of the materials inside it.
Posts #3 and #4 here include some links to some of the better lower budget latex and latex hybrid mattresses I’m aware of.
I’m not so sure I would interpret the reviews the same way you are but again … I would take all reviews (negative or positive) with a grain of salt and it would also depend on which mattress you are considering. Their return cost is $99 (if you order from the Dreamfoam website) but many of their mattresses also include the option to exchange the firmness of the comfort layer so if you are in the relatively small percentage of people whose initial firmness choice is too firm or too soft then with these mattresses you can exchange the comfort layer for a different firmness level (see post #7 here) which would end up being a suitable choice for a very high percentage of people.
There is more about the different ways to choose a mattress and how to reduce the risks involved with each one in post #2 here.
Their new comfort layer is certainly a high quality material and there are no weak links in the mattress but the choice of material is always a personal preference. Some of the new higher density and higher performance polyfoam materials have some more desirable properties than conventional polfoam (such as better point elasticity and pressure relieving properties, good durability, and higher compression modulus) although I wouldn’t consider them to be in the same performance or durability range as most latex materials (although some people may prefer how it feels compared to latex annd this would be a preference issue).
When you are looking at an “all or nothing” mattress where there is only a single comfort choice choice then it will be the “best” match for a relatively small percentage of people … a “good” match for a higher percentage of people, and an “OK” match for a higher percentage of people yet.
The only way to know whether it is a “good enough” match for you in terms of PPP would be based on your personal sleeping experience but for those where it isn’t then there is a great return policy.
There is also more about the most important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase that can help you make more meaningful comparisons between mattresses in post #13 here.