I don’t get to review mattresses often, but over the last few years there has been a big push into mattresses that use all sorts of high tech materials. The first company to step into the memory foam market that really made a name for itself was Tempurpedic, and back in the day I reviewed one of their first mattresses. I thought it was very comfortable, but it was insanely hot to sleep on. This fact left me and many others seeking out other types of mattresses. Most recently, I used a Sleep Number bed and slept on that for many years. While it was great when new, it didn’t age well, with multiple leaks in the air bladders after a couple of moves, and I literally never changed the settings after the first six months of use or so.

These days, there are lots of modern mattresses out there that use memory foam of different sorts for comfort, support, and temperature control. The folks from PangeaBed were kind enough to send me over a king size mattress to review and replace my old bed.

The PangeaBed Copper mattress turned up at my house in a tall cardboard box. The mattress was rolled up and vacuum sealed inside the box. I had to work to drag the heavy beast into my bedroom alone. You should really do it with two people, but one dude determined to sleep better the same night can do it alone. Once removed from the box, you find the mattress vacuum wrapped in a clear bag. PangeaBed includes a special cutter for you to use to get the mattress out of the bag that won’t cut the mattress. The second you break that plastic seal, the mattress starts to fill with air and grow to full size. I placed it on the same foundation that I used for my Sleep Number bed, and within a few hours it was ready to sleep on.

The PangeaBed Copper mattress I tested is covered in a quilted cover with 5/8″ soft foam and has a copper infused 100% pure Talalay latex top layer. The copper isn’t for some strange promise of magical healing powers, it’s there to make the mattress more resistant to bacteria and makes your mattress cleaner over its lifetime. Think about that a bit, we sweat a lot during sleep over the years and your mattress soaks that up. So putting something in there to kill bacteria is a great idea.

The second layer of the mattress is the transition layer and it is made from phase-change, gel-infused memory foam. The support base is made from a high-density, non-convoluted, solid polyurethane core. The overall mattress height is 10 5/8″ and for those worried about sheets slipping off of tall mattresses, I’ve had zero issues with that using sheets designed for pillow-top mattresses.

I have had a problem for years with my old bed causing hip and shoulder pain that left me tossing and turning at night and sore when I woke up in the morning. With the PangeaBed, the foam is firm and supportive, but still pliable. You do get that sink into it feel (but to a much lesser extent than that original memory foam Tempurpedic mattress from a decade ago) after you lay on it for a bit. When I woke up the first morning, my hips and shoulders felt better than they had in years. Over the next few weeks, I found that I would plunk down in bed and fall right asleep, with no tossing and turning, and slept so well, it seemed like the alarm immediately went off.

The best news for me is that the high-end foam used in the construction of the bed doesn’t trap heat in the least. This bed was cooler to sleep on than my Sleep Number and drastically more comfortable than the Tempurpedic. My wife had the same experience that I did – less back, neck, and shoulder pain than she had had in years. I’ve been sleeping on the mattress for nearly two months now and it’s as comfortable as it was on the first night.

One of the coolest parts about the PangeBed Copper mattress is that they make it all right here in the US. That makes the bed more expensive to build than shipping it out over seas, but it puts Americans to work and despite the built in the US quality the bed is still cheaper than most of the competition with a Queen going for $895, and the King size I tested selling for $1,045.

Considering that the mattress is American-made, and fantastically cool and comfortable all night long, I can’t say enough good things about this mattress. If you have been struggling to sleep at night, tossing and turning, and waking up with pain in your hips, back, or neck you know that you can’t put a price on good sleep. The PangeaBed Copper mattress gave me the most comfortable sleep I have had in over a decade, and I highly recommended it.