Nest Quail Mattress Review

Comfort & Feel

There are three aspects that make up our assessment of comfort and feel. We call these "preference-based characteristics" because no rating here is better or worse – rather, the attributes that are most desirable to you will be determined solely by your personal preferences. We apply the same classification standards to each mattress so you can more easily compare apples to apples.

Softness ( what’s this )

Keep in mind that what mattress companies call “firm” or “soft” is a purely a preference. All mattresses should be supportive and promote healthy spinal alignment. Whether a mattress is fluffy and squishy (what mattress companies call soft or plush), or less so (what companies call firm), is purely down to your personal needs and preferences.

We classify the Quail mattress as a Medium Soft in terms of softness overall. If you like that feeling of sinking into your mattress, we think you will like the Quail mattress. Note that we tested the Medium version of this bed; it’s also available in a Firm version.

Not sure what softness is best for you? Take our Mattress Match Quiz and find out.

Cushioning Depth ( what’s this )

This refers to how deeply you sink into the mattress or feel cradled or hugged, versus a feeling of floating on top of the bed. We found the Quail again to be on the deeper side when it comes to cushioning.

Responsiveness ( what’s this )

Responsiveness refers to how quickly a mattress recovers its shape after being compressed. When you press your hand into the mattress, for instance, then remove it, does it take several seconds for the mattress to return to flat, or does it recover immediately?

The  Quail mattress doesn’t include any memory foam, so it doesn’t have much of that slow, melting-into-the-bed feeling you typically get with a memory foam, but there is a little.

This also translates to bounce, which we test in two ways. When we dropped our 16-lb. bowling ball in the mattress, it bounced a couple of times, and when our tester dropped his weight onto the bed, he did not bounce at all. This mattress has practically no bounce at all, which comes into play when we discuss motion isolation further below. What’s interesting is that the company claims this mattress is as bouncy as an innerspring mattress, and in our tests, we just didn’t find that to be true.

Back Support & Pressure Relief

The two things that you should always be sure to get from your mattress are spinal alignment (commonly thought of as "back support") and pressure relief. Unfortunately, no mattress will deliver these two things equally well for all sleepers. In particular, spinal alignment and pressure relief capabilities will vary across sleepers with different weights, body shapes, and sleep positions. To help you determine how this mattress will perform for you, we break down our spinal alignment and pressure relief assessments by sleeper type.

In our evaluations, the Quail mattresses afforded very good support for back and side sleepers, and would be suitable for a broad range and sizes of people who tend to sleep primarily in those positions.

We did not, however, feel that the Nest Quail mattress would be a good choice for those who sleep on their stomachs. Because this is quite a soft mattress with significant cushioning, our tester found his hips and midsection sinking too deeply into the mattress, introducing over-arching in the back.

Spinal Alignment

The key to good back support is maintaining proper spinal alignment while you sleep. This means that the mattress should hold your spine in roughly the same position it's in when you're standing. The ability of a given mattress to do this will generally depend on your weight, sleep position, and body shape.

Here is how we break down the spinal alignment of the Nest Quail mattress:

Back Sleepers:

While our tester was on his back, he noted that his hips sank just deeply enough to create a good spinal position. He felt his midsection sinking in a bit more than with other mattresses, but this wasn’t problematic. We feel that sleepers of a wide weight range, especially those who prefer a softer mattress, would have a similar experience in this position on the .Quail

Side Sleepers:

Side sleeping was excellent for our testing, and the Quail really excels here. Our 200-lb. tester’s shoulders and hips were able to sink into the mattress while the mattress continued to support his waist and midsection. We noted that the overall feel was similar to latex in this position. We might have some concerns about those who are much heavier than our tester, in which case we might suggest going with the Firm version of this mattress.

Stomach Sleepers:

Achieving good spinal alignment for stomach sleepers can often be trickier as the hips can tend to sink down too far with some mattresses, and this was the case in our testing with the Quail mattress. Our tester’s hips and midsection sunk down deeply creating a less than ideal spinal alignment, which over time could lead to back pain. If you sleep primarily on your stomach, other choices would be better in our view.

Pressure Relief

Other Features

Beyond the preference-based characteristics of comfort and feel, and the body matching for spinal alignment and pressure relief, a mattress will have a number of other attributes that can make it a better or worse choice for you. We call these "priority-based characteristics" because they are areas in which a mattress can be better or worse, but that will have differing amounts of importance to each sleeper. So, determining how much importance to give to these features will be entirely a matter of your own personal priorities. As always, we apply the same ratings standards to each mattress so you can more easily compare apples to apples.

Motion Isolation ( what’s this )

With a bowling pin standing upright on the Nest Quail bed, we tested motion isolation by dropping a 16-lb. bowling ball on it, as well as the whole weight of our 200-lb. tester.

In both tests, the pin barely moved at all. For that reason, we felt that the Love & Sleep bed would be an excellent choice for couples who don’t want to feel their partner getting in and out of bed.

Temperature ( what’s this )

For those who don’t have a historical issue of feeling hot in bed, we do not think the Quail mattress will feel overly warm. However, this is an all-foam mattress with deeper than average cushioning, meaning less of your body is exposed to air. And while a thin layer of egg crate foam is included, it’s three inches down into the mattress, so we’re not sure it’s providing much benefit.

If overheating in bed is an issue for you, and you’ve experienced it with other mattresses, other models have features that are specifically intended to address this.

Edge Support ( what’s this )

Foam mattresses aren’t typically very supportive along the very edge of the mattress—important if you like to sit on the edge of the bed, or if you tend to sleep along the edge. And that’s the case with the Quail. When sitting on the side, our tester sank through virtually the whole mattress.

When laying on the very edge of the mattress, our tester felt his body starting to lean and slip off the edge pretty much right away, and the whole side of the mattress started to melt away under his weight. If you spend a lot of your sleep time right on the edge of the bed, we feel other mattresses will be a better fit.

Ease of Repositioning ( what’s this )

If you tend to move and change positions a lot over the course of a night, ease of repositioning will be a priority for you. Our tester did experience any big problems, though this mattress does have deeper cushioning which could make changing positions a bit more a challenge for those with a known issue. Overall, we don’t expect most people will have big problems here.

Green Features  ( what’s this )

For mattress shoppers concerned with the use of natural materials, sustainable manufacturing practices or the like, we offer our subjective evaluation of any efforts taken by the company to make the mattress more green, healthy, or safe. 

While Nest Bedding does make some mattresses that use natural materials, the Quail mattress isn’t one of them. The foams used are not natural; however they are certified to the CertiPUR-US standard, which verifies that a material has low VOC off-gassing as well as a lack of chemicals and other substances regulated by the CPSC (safety certification info can be found on the Nest website.)

Adjustable Base Compatibility ( what’s this )

While we did not test the Quail mattress on an adjustable base, Nest says that an appropriate frame will not harm the mattress. Based on our experience with mattresses of similar type and construction, we expect the Quail would have some initial conformance issues -- perhaps lifting up at the foot -- which would be typical of a lightweight all-foam mattress. We expect the mattress would relax after a break-in period.

Price, Value & Longevity

How Much Does a Nest Quail Mattress Cost?

Prices shown are list prices. Remember that GoodBed keeps our site current with the best available discounts on online mattresses, many of which are exclusive discounts for our readers.

What Are You Getting?

The Quail is a 10-inch mattress made of three layers of foam, wrapped in a soft and stretchy cover. The top layer of foam is the company’s proprietary Energex foam, which we found has some properties of synthetic latex.

How Long Will the Quail Mattress Last?

When it comes to estimating the comfort lifespan of a mattress, we tend to use foam density as our best, albeit imperfect, predictor of how long a foam will retain its shape and resiliency. The top Energex layer is a 2.8 lb. density, and that’s definitely on the low side of what we like to see for a mattress’s comfort layer. But the price is also lower. The lower layer of foam is a standard 1.8-lb. density polyurethane foam. Given the foam quality, we would expect an average lifetime out of the Quail bed, and the company does include a lifetime guarantee against sagging (as long as the depression is greater than an inch).

Overall Value

As Nest Bedding’s entry level product, we do think the Quail mattress represents a good value, especially compared to what you might find in a discount furniture store, or Ikea. We do think the mattress is well made, and found it to be an especially good choice for back and side sleepers who prefer a mattress with deeper cushioning.

From a performance standpoint, we’ve reviewed other beds that in our view were better for stomach sleepers, had more plush covers, better edge support, etc. And some of those mattresses cost just a couple of hundred dollars more than the Quail yet offer measurably better features. Even so, for a wide range of people, the Quail is a low-hassle, basic mattress that comes with a top-notch 365-night trial period and solid lifetime warranty.