I am thinking about buying a Sleep Number bed. I would like the kind that has the split top, so we can raise our heads separately. I priced out the original ones and the ones at Personal Comfort. The second one does not have a store in my area for me to go to to try out the mattresses first. I don’t want to buy one online without trying it out first. But I also don’t want to pay double for the original one. What is the best way to do my search?
Hi wencoff,
Welcome to the Mattress Forum! 
You can see some of my general comments about air mattresses here. While any mattress can be a good match for a specific person because each person’s needs and preferences or the criteria that are most important to them can be very different … in general terms I would tend to avoid them unless there is a very compelling reason that an airbed would be a better choice in “real life” (outside of the many “marketing stories” that you will hear about them) than the many other options or types of mattresses that are available to you. For those that are committed to an airbed and are convinced that there are no other types of mattresses that will meet their criteria then there are some other airbed options that are listed in post #3 here that may be much better quality/value choices than Sleep Number/Select Comfort. While they’re not on the list of alternate airbed companies in post #3, Personal Comfort is owned by Sizewise Rentals, LLC, and they have an exclusivity agreement with American National Manufacturing. Their foams come from Pacific Urethanes.
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The durability and useful life of a mattress depends on knowing the specifics of its construction and the type and quality of the materials inside it regardless of the name of the manufacturer on the label or how a mattress feels in a showroom or when it is relatively new so I would always make sure that you find out information listed here so you can compare the quality of the materials and components to the durability guidelines here to make sure there are no lower quality materials or weak links in a mattress that would be a cause for concern relative to the durability and useful life of a mattress before making any purchase.
Phoenix