Your Guide to Investing in a New Mattress

Thanks to technology, it's never been easier to buy one. We tried out three new models and these were the results:

Tuft & Needle

Price: $500 (Full); $600 (Queen)

Daehee Park and JT Marino founded Tuft & Needle in 2012 after the newlywed Marino, shopping around with his wife, realized there was an opportunity for a reasonably priced and comfortable mattress.

Pros: Great value. Foam mattresses can feel excessively hot, but by experimenting with a two-layer instead of a three-layer foam, Tuft & Needle have created a mattress that can breathe a little more easily.

Cons: It can still be hot.

Sonno

Price: $760 (Full); $875 (Queen)

One of the latest entries into the foam mattress category, Sonno was created by Dino Corella and has a unique claim to fame: Each side of the mattress can be cus-tomized, so you get two levels of firmness, choosing from soft, medium, and firm.

Pros: Easy to flip over, thanks to the handles on each side.

Cons: The firm side could be firmer. Plus, five layers of foam--two for each side and one for the center--made the bed a little too toasty.

Helix's Made-to-Order Mattress

Price: $800 (Full); $900 (Queen)

Helix specializes in customizing mattresses, and found a mattress with firmness, sink, and support based on our answers to its comprehensive questionnaire on sleep habits, body shape, size, and weight. You can upgrade to a mattress with different zones for each partner too.

Pros: The mattress arrives in under a week in a box compact enough to carry up a few flights. Difference in sleep quality is immediate. Helix also offers a cooling mattress that works well all summer, and a 100-night sleep test period, so if you're not satisfied, they'll refund your purchase and pick up the mattress.

Cons: The instructions suggests that the mattress, once unwrapped and unrolled, takes its full shape after about 45 minutes. For us, it took half a day.

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