Plenty of people come looking for the same thing when the budget is tight: a bed soft enough to sink into, with proper pocket springs underneath it and not just a slab of foam. The Boost 800 Pocket Memory is Bodyshape's answer, and Bodyshape is Mattress Online's own brand, sold nowhere else. Lie down on your side and a layer of memory foam gives slowly under your shoulder and hip, with reflex foam and soft fibres in there too, until 800 pocket springs take your weight. Mattress Online grades it Soft to Medium, the softest grade on its scale, and it comes rolled and vacuum-packed. I'd put it in a spare room, a first flat or a teenager's room, and be pleased with it there.
The Boost 800s are the first rung of the Boost range, below the 1,000-spring models, and there are three of them. The plain Boost 800 Pocket is graded Medium and the Boost 800 Pocket Ortho is Firm, with no memory foam in either. This one has the memory foam and the softest grade, so buy it for the sink, and leave it alone if you want a bed that pushes back. Side sleepers and lighter people get the most from it. If you're heavier or sleep on your front, walk past it.
For a teenager's room or the spare bed, I'd buy it, because pocket springs under a soft memory-foam layer don't often come this cheap, and a teenager or a guest gets a bed that feels far kinder than the money suggests. If you sleep hot, it's the wrong bed whatever room it goes in. As the everyday bed for two adults in a king, I wouldn't choose it either.
Soft to Medium with memory foam, so you sink before the springs catch you
Expect to sink. On your side, the memory foam lets your shoulder go in far enough for your spine to run straight, and your hip settles in the same way. Lie on your back and it fills the hollow at your waist where a firmer bed would prop you up. That suits a light body best: under about nine stone, a medium-firm bed feels like a plank on your side, so take the softer grade the chart wouldn't give you.
Heavier bodies are a different story. Somewhere towards eighteen stone you'll press through the comfort layers to the springs, and on your back your hips drop lower than your shoulders, the hammock feeling that's pleasant for ten minutes and grim by morning. Front sleepers get that dip at the hips worse still, so take a firmer bed. If you turn over a lot in the night, memory foam's slow give costs you a moment of effort every time you move, and restless sleepers are happier on springs with a springier foam or latex on top.
Every maker runs its own firmness scale, and Mattress Online's Soft to Medium only tells you something next to Mattress Online's own Medium and Firm. It annoys me every time. Go by your weight first and your position second, and give the bed a fair go: Bodyshape says to allow at least a fortnight to get used to a new mattress, so hold yourself to that before you decide it's wrong.
800 pocket springs suit one sleeper better than two
I call a thousand pocket springs in a double a little light, and 800 is lighter again. It's still a proper pocket unit, every spring in a fabric pocket of its own, so the springs under a restless partner go down without dragging yours along, and the memory foam deadens most of the movement that's left. For one person in a single or a small double, 800 does the job. For two adults sharing a king or super king every night, it's fewer springs than I'd want under them. Before you order a king or a super king, get Mattress Online to tell you what size that 800 refers to.
Bodyshape uses firmer springs in the outer rows to stiffen the edge. That counts for more on a small double, where a soft edge leaves two people huddled in the middle. Sit on the side to tie your shoes and the firmer outer row holds you up, and you can sleep right out to the edge without feeling you're about to roll off.
The knitted cover breathes, and the memory foam still runs warm
The knitted cover and the layer of soft white fibres let air move through the top of the bed, and that helps. Memory foam keeps your body heat all the same, and no cover changes that. I hate being too hot, and overheating wakes me, so I care about this part more than most. If you sleep cool, enjoy how cosy it is. If you wake up hot most nights, this isn't your bed: go for gel foam or springs with natural fillings, and there's a gel bed from the same shop below.
Rolled, single-sided and easy to get up the stairs
It arrives vacuum-packed in a roll. A single weighs about 20kg, so one person can carry it up a narrow staircase, while a super king is nearer 39kg and wants two of you. Rolled pocket springs work well, and I've no worries about the idea. Unroll it in the room it's going in, open a window and give it the six to eight hours Bodyshape asks for before the sheets go on. Memory foam has a smell straight out of the plastic, which is normal and clears once the room has had some air.
You never turn it over, because the comfort layers are all on one side. Spin it round every three months so the end your pillow was on becomes the foot end, which Bodyshape asks for and almost nobody does. I'd always rather have a mattress I can flip, since one that shares its wear across two faces lasts longer, so if turning matters to you, the double-sided Boost further down is the one to buy.
At 25cm deep (about 10 inches), give or take a couple of centimetres, it takes ordinary fitted sheets, though a pocket of 27cm or more saves you fighting the last corner. Bodyshape calls it handcrafted in the UK. I'm glad it's made here, and what's inside is what I judge it on, which is a decent amount of foam and fibre over the springs for a bed at this level. Check the delivery date in the basket before you promise anyone a bed for the weekend.
The trial gets you an exchange, and the guarantee is one year
The 100-Night Comfort Trial lets you swap the mattress for another one, not send it back for a refund. The swap only opens once you've given the bed a month of nights, and only if a Mattress Online protector went into the same order. I'm not a fan of protectors, because they make a mattress breathe less well, but here one is the price of the trial, so put it in the basket.
You get a year's cover against faulty workmanship and materials. Wear and tear is excluded, and so are stains on a mattress that went without a protector, and damage from an unsuitable base. Guarantees on most beds only cover a dip deeper than a couple of centimetres, and they don't pay out because a bed has gone softer, so get Mattress Online to put in writing what depth it treats as a fault.
What to buy instead
For an everyday bed for two, or for anyone who runs warm, buy the Bodyshape Gel 2000 Pocket Hybrid Mattress from the same shop. It costs more, and the extra goes on a gel memory foam comfort layer in place of plain memory foam, 2,000 pocket springs where this has 800, and a five-year guarantee. To my mind gel foam makes a difference for warm sleepers. It's graded Medium, so it sits firmer under you, which a couple or a heavier sleeper wants anyway.
If you'd sooner turn a mattress than rotate it, the Bodyshape Boost 1000 Pocket Mattress is double-sided with handles, has 1,000 springs and also carries five years. It has no memory foam, and one owner calls it a hard mattress, so it's the one for back sleepers who want to flip their bed, not for a side sleeper after the sink this one gives.
