Hi EZ4HZ,
I would keep in mind that the design of a mattress will have much more to do with how well it keeps you in alignment than the type of materials that are inside it. Any materials can be used to make a mattress where some versions of that particular combination of materials and components would work very well to keep you in alignment and other combinations of the same materials will be completely unsuitable for you to sleep on. Almost all materials are used in a very wide range of mattresses that vary from very soft to very firm.
The type of materials or mattresses you tend to prefer is a preference choice but no matter which type of materials are in a mattress that you like and is a good match for you in terms of PPP … it’s always important to make sure that they are good quality and durable because most materials are available in lower quality and less durable versions and higher quality more durable versions.
I would also be aware that “hybrid” doesn’t have any specific meaning and generally refers to a mattress that uses a combination of different materials and components. The mattress you linked for example would be a pocket coil/memory foam hybrid and a mattress that used the same type of pocket coil and had latex in the comfort layers would be a pocket coil/latex hybrid and even a “standard” memory foam mattress is actually a polyfoam/memory foam hybrid because they usually use polyfoam support cores (memory foam is too soft to use in the deeper support layers of a mattress).
As you can see in the guidelines here I would tend to avoid major brand mattresses such as Sealy, Simmons and Serta.
If for some reason you are considering a major brand mattress anyway … then I would make sure that you know the specifics of all the layers and components inside the mattress (see the guidelines here) so that you can identify any weak links in the mattress and make more meaningful comparisons to other mattresses.
There is more about the most important parts of the value of a mattress purchase in post #13 here.
That would depend on the specifics of the two mattresses you are comparing.
In terms of suitability and PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences) it would depend on which mattress your testing indicated was a better match for you.
In terms of durability and the useful life of the mattress it would depend on the quality of the materials inside the mattress (see the guidelines here).
In terms of “value”, it would depend on how it compared to the other “finalists” you were considering based on all the parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you.
There is more about the different ways that one mattress can “approximate” another one in post #9 here but I don’t know of any other manufacturer that makes a mattress that is designed to approximate this mattress so the only way to know whether another mattress would feel similar to you would be based on your own personal testing and experience. I would tend to avoid using any specific mattress as a “target” though and rate every mattress you test against a common set of criteria.
If you can find out the specifics of the materials in this mattress and post it on the forum then I’d be happy to make some comments about the quality and durability of the materials but it’s not likely that you will be able to find this out (see this article) so in most cases the time you spend testing major brand mattresses is really wasted unless you are willing to take the risk of making a blind purchase where the odds are very high that the mattress will lose its comfort and support much too quickly relative to the price you paid for it. The 2" of polyfoam in the upper layers of the mattress (which are likely a low quality/density version of polyfoam) would be enough for me to exclude it from consideration without even knowing the quality/density of the additional 3" of memory foam that are also used in the comfort layers (which are also likely to be fairly low quality/density). While this is not the same mattress … you can see an example here of the low quality polyfoam that is used in the Sealy Hybrid series. Their memory foam is usually in the range of 4 lbs (which is on the bottom end of the density range that I would consider to be a suitable quality material) to much lower (I wouldn’t consider anything under @ 4 lbs density unless you were in an very low budget range and there were no other better quality and more durable options available to you).
The tutorial post includes links to several lists of the better online options I’m aware of and several of these make various types of innerspring hybrid mattresses. In most cases though it’s a much more effective approach to talk with them first and ask them if there are any local mattresses that may be similar to one of the mattresses they make. This would be much more common with “standard” memory foam mattresses where they include which major brand mattress approximates one of the mattresses they make in their online description so you could test a similar mattress locally. It’s much less common to find an “equivalent” with other types of mattresses.
If you approach things from the other direction and first try to find a local mattress that you like and then try to find an “equivalent” online it’s very unlikely that you will find one (unless it’s exactly the same mattress) unless the mattress you like happens to be one of the few that an online manufacturer uses as a comparison in their online description.
If you follow all the steps in the tutorial post (without missing any) then your chances of making a successful purchase that is suitable for you, uses high quality and durable materials, and is good value, will be much higher.
Phoenix