Prana vs. iComfort

Hello,

My wife and I recently purchased a King sized Pranasleep Vinyasa 4 plush from a City Mattress in Boca Raton, FL. We were originally interested in a Serta’s Prodigy and visited the store to see the Renewal Refined, both of which are in the iComfort series. Without any pushing by the salesman we tried out the Vinyasa and both seemed to enjoy that mattress the best.

After we made our purchase we came home, realized that we had just made an impulse buy and decided to do some research. The very few reviews for Pranasleep beds available are underwhelming at best. But the redeeming factor is that all of the negative user reviews I have found are from 2005-2008. I’m hoping a lot has changed.

I revisited my salesman on my lunch break today to tell him my findings. I told him that the consensus out here is that the top of the Pranasleep breaks down quickly and becomes misshapen. He admitted that this was a problem in the past and that the newer version addressed this issue. His manager extended my return from 60 days to 120 days and made a provision that I would be able to trade-down to the Serta Renewal Refined iComfort series if I decided to do so. Normally they only allow you to trade-up.

I am still in a position where I can change my order. I’m a little worried about my decision and am seeking some direction. In your opinion, which is the better mattress? Is it the Pranasleep Vinyasa 4 plush or the Serta Renewal Refined iComfort? Thanks in advance for your feedback. It is greatly appreciated.

Hi tatanka,

Unfortunately I wouldn’t consider either of your choices to be good value.

A mattress is only as good as its construction and the quality of the materials that is inside it. Without knowing the specific details of the layers in a mattress … it’s not possible to know its quality/durability or identify any weak links in the mattress. You can’t “feel” quality in a showroom but it will have a significant effect on how long the comfort and support of your mattress will last. As you can see in post #2 here which talks about the factors involved in the durability of a mattress … all foam will go through 3 stages of softening and only the final breakdown of the material (when it forms unweighted impressions) is covered by warranty and then only if the impressions are deeper than the warranty exclusion. Unfortunately … the gradual (or rapid) softening and breakdown of lower quality materials and the loss of comfort and support that goes with it is the main reason a mattress will need to be replaced and this is not considered to be a manufacturing defect (it’s what lower quality foam always does) and is not covered by warranty.

You can see some comments about the Prana here which reflects the same concerns that you have already read about. A forum search on “Prana” (you can just click this) will bring up more comments as well. If they have “fixed” this (which is a claim I would treat with great caution) … then they should be able to validate this by disclosing the specifics of the foam layers in their current models including the density of the upper layers of polyfoam which I believe are still there.

You can see an analysis of much of the iComfort lineup including the Renewal Refined in post #11 here. As you can see … this specific model only has an inch of low quality/density foam in the upper layers (the 1.3 lb “support” polyfoam) which is inside the minimum that I would usually suggest in comfort layers (thinner layers of low quality foam will have less effect on the loss of comfort and support as they soften) but based on the quality of materials in the mattress and its design … it is not good value either (like all the largest major brands) compared to other mattresses that use higher quality materials and sell for lower prices.

I certainly wouldn’t want to be choosing between them because you are choosing between two mattresses that I normally wouldn’t consider at all in quality/value terms … regardless of how they may feel in a showroom when they are new.

So I would want to know the specifics of the Prana layers so you could compare the amount of lower quality materials in each and make a more informed decision. 120 days is not enough to know the durability of a mattress although it does at least cover the break-in period of more rapid initial foam softening which is followed by more gradual softening over time (with lower quality materials softening and breaking down more and faster than higher quality materials).

Phoenix

Hello Phoenix,

Thanks for your thorough response. I understand that these mattresses may not be the best value. I am in a position where a decision needs to be made quickly and unfortunately, these are the products which where easily available for me to test and choose from. Furthermore, the company I used provided a financing option which I required.

I guess what I was asking was: If given the two choices of aforementioned mattresses, which one would you have chosen and why? Any feedback provided is truly appreciated. Thank you for your guidance and expertise.

Hi tatanka,

I would need to know more specifics about the costs involved in each choice and the details of the layers in the Prana to make a meaningful comparison.

If you can find out the layer by layer specs of the Prana (including the density of the top polyfoam layer as they are currently making it) and can provide the cost to you of each option and also provide specific feedback about your testing experiences on each mattress in terms of PPP (Pressure relief, Posture and alignment, and Personal preferences) and which one you preferred in each part of your testing along with any other criteria that is important to you in your choice (see post #46 here about your personal value equation) then I would be in a much better position to tell you which direction I would lean if I was in your shoes or at least some thoughts about the tradeoffs that would be most important to me if I was forced to make a choice between them.

Without the additional information I really don’t have a frame of reference to provide any thoughts or feedback that would be meaningful.

Phoenix