Price and performance rarely track each other neatly, and Tom’s Guide’s sleep lab has just produced a textbook example. Two all-foam beds went through the same test rig — the SweetNight CoolNest Memory Foam and the Nectar Premier Memory Foam — and on the metrics that matter most to side sleepers, the cheaper one came out ahead.
The pressure-relief test is the heart of it. Testers pressed a 25kg weight into the shoulder and hip zones of each mattress, then measured how deep the foam sank and how long it took to spring back. Deeper indentation at the hip means more room for the pelvis to settle; faster recovery means the surface repositions with you instead of trapping you in a crater.
- Hip indentation: CoolNest 4.375″, Nectar Premier 4″
- Shoulder indentation: CoolNest 4″, Nectar Premier 4.25″
- Hip recovery: CoolNest 2 seconds, Nectar Premier 5 seconds
- Shoulder recovery: CoolNest 2 seconds, Nectar Premier 3.5 seconds
The CoolNest cradled the hip more deeply and reset roughly twice as fast at both contact points. The Nectar Premier gave slightly more at the shoulder, but its 5-second hip recovery is the sluggish, sink-in memory foam behaviour that side sleepers who toss and turn tend to complain about.
Cooling followed the same pattern. The CoolNest shed heat at 2.1°F per minute with a mean temperature index of 15.2°F, scoring 4/5. The Nectar Premier managed 0.9°F per minute and an MTI of 8.1°F for 3.5/5. Edge support also went to the budget bed, at 4.5/5 and 99.04% usable sleep space against 4/5 and 97.5%.
Nectar’s win is motion isolation, where it took 4/5 to the CoolNest’s 3.5/5 — the payoff of its layer stack, which the company lists as a 2-inch pressure-relief memory foam layer, 3 inches of responsive support foam and an 8-inch foundational motion isolation layer.
Both beds are rated medium-firm. The CoolNest tested here stands 12″ tall, comes in 5 sizes (twin and Cal king sold out), and ships with a 100-night trial and a 10-year warranty. The Nectar Premier is 13″ tall, offered in 7 sizes, and backed by a 365-night trial and a lifetime warranty.
Then there is the money. As of September 2026 the CoolNest queen was listed at US$360 in a Labor Day promotion, down from US$399.99, while the Nectar Premier queen carries a US$999 price. That is the gap the test set out to interrogate, and the answer is uncomfortable for the pricier bed.
If you sleep on your side, sleep hot, or use the edge of the mattress to get in and out, the CoolNest does the job for a fraction of the outlay. If you share a bed with a restless partner, need a twin or Cal king, or want a longer trial and lifetime coverage, the Nectar Premier still earns its keep.
