The Test

I picked 5 top brand inflatable mattresses for under $300, then slept on each for a couple of nights, picking the overall best value and returning the rest. Since I didn’t have my garage handy when I am traveling, it needed to have a portable air pump included. Also, since traveling means trucking around all our stuff along with my family, I also wanted it to be relatively portable and not take up too much of our valuable trunk space. I graded each inflatable mattress with 10 points for comfort, 5 for portability convenience, and 5 points for ease of set-up and tear-down.

Here is a summary of my findings:

• Aerobed Full Size Classic Plus $149.99
  • Points: Comfort: 8, Portability:3, Ease:3, Overall:14/20
• Coleman Queen Size Double High Quickbed (with pump) $84.99
  • Points: Comfort: 3, Portability:4, Ease:4, Overall:11/20
• Wenzel Flocked-Top Insta-bed Airbed $64.89
  • Points: Comfort: 5, Portability:4, Ease:2, Overall:11/20
• Simmons Beautyrest Sky Rise Express Air Bed with Pump, $109.49
  • Points: Comfort: 8, Portability:4, Ease:4, Overall:16/20
• Home Trends Raised Air Mattress With Built-In Pump $59.82
  • Points: Comfort: 10, Portability:3, Ease:4, Overall:18/20
• AeroBed Premier Raised Queen $275.99
  • Points: Comfort: 10, Portability:2, Ease:5, Overall:18/20

Details:

Aerobed Full Size Classic Plus $149.99

Points: Comfort: 8, Portability:3, Ease:4, Overall:15/20

So I was a little nervous about sleeping on these beds and possibly sacrificing some quality sleep over the course of the experiment. But I was on a mission to avoid my parents hide-a-bed this year. To my surprise, this air mattress had a lot of promise. It inflated quickly in a matter of a minute (and consequently was even faster during deflation) with absolutely no hassles. The firmness could be controlled via the remote which made it easy to find the right support level. There was no air leakage in the morning and I felt pretty good. Getting out of it was a pain however as it only sits a few inches off the floor. Since I can hardly move in the mornings, having to get up from a low position like that provides a challenge, one in which I felt I was paying to avoid.

Being the first one I had tried, I was optimistic that I would find a good one. I thought that the price was reasonable for what I was getting, I just wished it sat a bit higher off the floor. It also didn’t store very well which encouraged a slightly lower score on portability.

Coleman Queen Size Double High Quickbed (with pump) $84.99

Comfort: 3, Portability:4, Ease:4, Overall:11/20

This is a very compact inflatable mattress and would have been very easy to transport around. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent on my first night that my sleep was going to be sub-par.  You can buy it with or without the pump, I bought it with the pump (for an extra $15 of course) which took under five minutes to inflate. The little bag attached is pretty easy to fit the mattress back into and it deflated pretty painlessly. I just couldn’t get comfortable on it as there seemed to be support in all the wrong places. Everything was great with it, except the main thing… comfort!

Wenzel Flocked-Top Insta-bed Airbed $64.89

Comfort: 5, Portability:3, Ease:3, Overall:11/20

The air pump that it comes with is battery operated which is nice so you don’t need to find a plug in. It inflated really fast (2 minutes or so), and also had a reverse switch to deflate it.  I wondered what would happen if you forgot to pack extra D sized batteries though, and although it says it can fill and deflate up to 20 times on one set, an optional AC adapter would be nice.

The sleep itself was better than my previous night on the Coleman, but it certainly wasn’t premium. I woke up with a sore back and grumpy. The other thing is that it didn’t come with a storage bag. So I would have to get a seperate duffel bag to carry it around. That annoyed me. I would rather sleep on my parents broken hide-a-bed than this.

Simmons Beautyrest Sky Rise Express Air Bed with Pump, $109.49

Points: Comfort: 8, Portability:4, Ease:4, Overall:16/20

It’s Simmons right, so it must be a pretty decent bed, right? Well, it wasn’t bad. For the price tag, I thought it was really a good value. My sleep was similar to the Aerobed that I tried the first night and it was pretty easy to use. It comes with a duffel bag and repair kit which is a benefit since my kids will likely come and come on the bed when I’m not looking. Really easy to adjust the firmness level for finding the right support and all in all, it was the best mattress I had tried yet. Since I didn’t want to spend too much on a mattress if I could avoid it, it was certainly top of my list at this point.

Home Trends Raised Air Mattress With Built-In Pump $59.82

Points: Comfort: 10, Portability:4, Ease:4, Overall:18/20

When I was at Wal-Mart picking up the Simmons inflatable mattress, I happened to come across this Home Trends mattress which was super cheap. I pulled out my iPhone when I was there to see what I could find for reviews on it and low and behold, there were some very positive reviews for it. So I picked it up out of convenience and to my great surprise, this is one hell of a mattress. Comfort was comparable to my permanent latex mattress and everything from the pump to the height was spot on with what I was looking for. Ease of operation was fine once you figure out how the dial works and the portability was easy for folding up and came with a little carrying bag.

For the price, this was taking the cake hands down. I was pretty confident that this would be the one, and in the end, it won out.

AeroBed Premier Raised Queen $275.99

Points: Comfort: 10, Portability:3, Ease:5, Overall:18/20

So I had really liked the first bed I had tried, the AeroBed Classic Plus, and I thought I would give the brand another chance to see how good they actually could get. After all, I did want to find the best inflatable mattress and I really thought that this one looked promising. All I can say is wow. This bed certainly is comfortable. Similar to the Classic Plus, it had the firmness adjustment device which was easy to calibrate to support requirements. But, why does it have to be so cumbersome to set up and transport? If I was using it as a guest bed, I would probably have gone for this model. It was really easy to use and superior in comfort. The other factor was the price. For one quarter of the price, I could keep the Wal-Mart special which was also comfortable and convenient for travel.My wife really liked this AeroBed model and we debated whether the extra price was worth it.

Conclusion

In the end however, comfort, portability and price were the winners for the Home Sense inflatable mattress. We’ll see how it goes over the holiday’s. My only concern is whether the Home Sense inflatable mattress will be as durable. Mind you, I doubt I will go through four of them which would justify paying the premium for the Aerobed Premier.

I hope this helps you pick the right inflatable mattress for you!

Waterbed mattresses are typically categorized in terms of motion, such as full motion, semi-waveless, and waveless. Often there will be an association with the degree of “wavelessness” via a percentage. This number doesn’t represent anything in specific, but indicates a degree of how fast the mattress will stop rocking after to get into it. For example, a 95% waveless waterbed mattress would stop rocking in less that 2 seconds. This is largely due to new fiber inserts which also provide lumbar support and of course the “swishing” effect and are often referred to as waveless, fiberfill or baffled waterbeds. Fiber layers are part of the composition of the bladder, being an internal component which the water would surround. Varying degrees of firmness can be achieved depending on the number of these lumbar layers which means that going to a supplier to test the firmness you prefer is a necessity. This might be a bit of a challenge as many retailers are not selling waterbed mattresses. However, if you live in or near a large center, with a bit of shopping around you should be able to find someone with a few options.

Traditionally, there was only the wood enclosed waterbed mattress (called hardsides) which essentially contained the bladder of the waterbed within the usually wooden frame. Today, there are many variations of the soft side waterbeds which look quite similar to a conventional inner spring mattress but contain a waterbed bladder on the inside. These typically have a mattress cover on them built up as a either a plush pillowtop or foam.

There are many waterbed mattresses that also have two bladders on the interior of the soft side variety. This allows for different “firmness” on either side of the bed for couples to have control over their individual preferences, and to eliminate the “hill and canyon” effect of the lighter person/heavier person in a full motion bladder. These mattresses can have different numbers of lumbar layers as well as water quantities.

Of course, if you are still in love with the old school full motion waterbed mattress, they are still available through online suppliers. However, those are typically not recommended as they almost certainly will lead to back problems. There were times in college that I thought I never wanted to sleep on anything else but a full motion waterbed mattress, since my girlfriend was a big fan when she stayed over. Needless to say, the periodic joys of waterbed copulations ended up being largely outweighed by the frequent backaches and we eventually purchased a new bed.

Fundamentally, the waterbed mattresses do what they are intended to do, namely provide a reduction in pressure points via even force distribution. Air mattresses use a similar concept to provide an even distribution of pressure often with the added benefit of customizable pressure adjustment on the fly. Waterbed mattresses have come along way and the modern designs can be really comfortable. I have never purchased a new one, but during my time as a mattress salesman there was quite a lot of interest generated by them and several customers said they would never sleep on anything else again.

The bottom line is that everyone needs to find a bed that suits them best. The best way to do that is to go test them out for yourself. Good luck finding retailers that are still selling these beauties however, after the 90’s crash due to back related complaints, waterbeds really fell off the map. As mentioned earlier though, if you are in a large center, there should be one still selling them.

Good luck!