Want memory foam's hug without feeling you'll need a hand to get out of bed in the morning? That's the gap the Premier Hybrid is built to fill. It's the top of Nectar's mattress range, sold direct by Nectar: memory foam and a layer of tiny springs over a full layer of pocket springs, 28cm deep, with more layers in it than anything else the brand makes. The foam lets your hip and shoulder ease in, then the springs underneath catch them and push back, so you're cradled without being swallowed. I'm not usually the first to wave people towards a boxed bed, but this one I'd happily let you buy. Honestly, you could do a lot worse.
Its sister bed, the Nectar Classic Hybrid (sold as the Essential Hybrid until Nectar renamed it), is the same idea in a simpler build. What the Premier adds sits inside the mattress: a micro-spring layer among the comfort foams, an engineered transition foam between the comfort layers and the pocket springs, and 3cm of extra depth. On Nectar's house firmness scale the Premier rates 7 and the Classic 5, which makes this the firmer of its two hybrids and the firmest mattress Nectar sells. If you want to sink, the Classic is your bed. If you want to be held a little higher, it's this one.
Nectar's firmest mattress, and some owners still call it soft
Nectar's 7 puts it at medium-firm, but a firmness scale belongs to the brand that prints it, and that 7 is a 7 against Nectar's own beds, not against a Hypnos or a Simba. So it comes down to your weight first and your position second. At an average build on your back, the foam gives your lower back something to settle into and the springs keep your hips level with your shoulders. That's the sleeper this bed suits best.
Owners split both ways on it. The heavier ones call it softer than a medium-firm should be, and a few of them report a dip where they sleep within the first months. Some slighter owners who sleep on their side find the opposite, a bed that pushes back at the hip. I read that as a mattress pitched at the middle of the weight range, which is where most of us are. If you're a big person, or you share with one, the Eve Hybrid Duo is the better bed for you.
Where the extra money goes in the Premier Hybrid
The extra goes into support. The transition foam is the part I like most: it's a supportive layer that stops the memory foam from bottoming out on the springs, and it's why this bed lifts an average-weight back sleeper better than the Classic does. The extra depth goes into the layers above the pocket springs, where the support is tuned. The micro-springs add a bit of bounce and let air move around under the foam.
Plenty of people love this combination, memory foam over pocket springs with a lively layer of micro-springs up among the comfort foams, and I can see why: it feels more responsive than an all-foam bed and gives you a little bounce when you turn over. Micro-springs alone would never be my reason to pick a mattress, and I'd usually sooner see the money go into better foam, but here they come as part of a build that works. At full price the step up from the Classic Hybrid is a big one. Nectar runs offers often, so wait for one and the sums look much kinder.
Hot sleepers should look elsewhere
There's memory foam in the comfort layers, and it softens by taking in your body heat, then keeps that warmth close to you through the night. Nectar has given this one a cooling cover and a breathable foam layer, and the micro-springs move some air about, which is better than nothing. I'm less convinced by cooling covers than by anything inside a mattress, because the heat your body gives off meets the foam either way. If you wake up hot on a foam bed now, you'll wake up hot on this.
Average-weight back and side sleepers get the best of it
Back sleepers of average build are the easy fit, and so are combination sleepers who roll from back to side in the night. Side sleepers of average weight do well too, because the foam lets the shoulder in. Couples get the usual hybrid bonus: the pocket springs are wrapped one by one, so your partner's turning stays on their side of the bed. Hybrids are what I point most people towards when they don't know what they want, and this is a sound one. Would I buy it? For an average-weight back sleeper, yes, and all the more happily in a sale.
Heavy sleepers should pass, and so should anyone who sits on the side of the mattress to pull their shoes on every morning, because the border sinks under you, and on a shared double that soft border pushes you both in towards the middle. Very light side sleepers who like to sink should take the Classic instead, since Nectar grades it softer.
Living with a 28cm boxed hybrid
It arrives rolled in a box, 38kg of it in a double, so have a second person there to lift it out and on to the base. Give it a day or two to open out fully before you judge it, and the cat, if you have one, will sit in the box. At 28cm it's inside the depth I'm comfortable with, though standard fitted sheets will be snug, so buy deep-pocket ones. Sizes run from a single up to a super king, and there's no small double in this one.
It's single-sided, so swing it round end to end every few months and never flip it. Nectar's Forever Warranty asks for a solid base underneath, or slats spaced 9cm apart at most, and it only counts a dip as a fault once it's deeper than 4cm. Keep that number in mind if you're heavier and tempted anyway. The 365-night trial gives you plenty of time to find out, and Nectar suggests a month before you decide.
The softer Classic, or the Eve for heavier sleepers
If you're on the light side, sleep on your side and want more sink, buy the Nectar Classic Hybrid: it's softer and cheaper, with the same trial and warranty behind it. If you're heavier, buy the Eve Hybrid Duo from Bensons. It puts 1,900 pocket springs in two layers, mini and full-height, under its memory foam, and it's one of the best-built hybrids I know.
