Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsGreat for multiple uses, but read if you're going camping with it.
Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2012
For an air mattress, this is great, but it's more like a 3 in 1 mattress: you can have two separate twin size beds, one giant king size bed, or one tall twin size bed. This would be great for guests and pumps up pretty quickly and firmly.
However, I used this air mattress for camping. Here are the pros and cons if you are thinking about using this for camping:
1. The air mattress is super heavy when deflated and folded, like 50 pounds heavy. It's compact, which is the good news, but heavy! If you're just going to one site and staying there, then it's no biggie because you will only be moving it to the car and back.
2. The air mattress needs a pump, and manual pumps would take like an hour to blow it up as you step on the pump constantly (like when inflating the big exercise ball, but this time, it's like inflating 50 big exercise balls at once). Therefore the best alternative to a manual pump is an electric pump. Here's the kicker:
2a. An electric pump can work on a rechargeable battery. You have to make sure that the battery is charged before you leave. The battery for us only lasted for two separate pumps. Unfortunately air compression changes as the climate pressure changes. Meaning, the air mattress won't stay inflated and will need to be reinflated every other day or every two days, depending on how soft or firm you like it. So if you're out for a week like and you only get two good pumps, you'll be sleeping on a sinky, almost water bed like mattress when, which is fine if you like soft beds. But if you like firm beds, you can end up with back pains like I did.
2b. If you have electrical outlets available to you at your camp site, than you don't have to worry about the battery not being charged, and can pump the bed up as many times as you want.
3. Air mattresses are cold. I don't know why, but they are constantly cold to the touch-even if you cover it with a flannel sheet or a thick blanket, it's still cold. If you're sleeping on a well insulated sleeping bag, like a 0 degree sleeping bag, this won't bother you at all. But if your sleeping bag is not well insulated (30 degrees), you're going to freeze while camping. Trust me, doesn't matter if it's summer time or not, it's cold at night when camping.
4. It takes up quite a bit of space-it's a mattress. And if you have two twin size mattress side by side, it's like having a queen size bed in your tent. Tents aren't big enough. Luckily with a 6 person tent, having an air mattress and still having some space to but your bags and change somewhere away from your bed, than the mattress doesn't seem like it's taking up so much space. But I'm talking about a 6 person tent for this mattress for 2 people. (If you know anything about tents you know that a 2 person tent is only big enough for 2 people sleeping side by side-and only that).
5. Putting it away-getting ALL that air out and folding it back into its bag can be quite a chore. You know how people have a tough time rolling up sleeping bags and then getting it back in the bag it comes with? Yeah, this is more difficult. I can totally get sleeping bags in their bag, but the air mattress was more difficult. Oh I think I know why: sleeping bags hold air in it, but it's cloth in which there are holes that the air can seep out of when you suish the sleeping bag. An air mattress is vinyl, so the holes of the fabric are so tight that air can barely escape when you squish it. Therefore you can only allow the air to escape through the tiny hole that the pump connects to blow up the mattress.
