Casper Element Mattress Review: We Tried the New Element Pro
I moved to New York City three weeks ago, and while enormously excited to be here, the only thing on my mind when I opened the door to my already furnished apartment was, That. Is. A. TWIN. BED. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, I hadn’t had such a small bunk since I was a teen. To live and thrive in the city that never sleeps, I knew I needed a good night’s rest, but how quickly could I get a quality, affordable queen-size mattress?
My criteria were straightforward, I wanted a mattress that was:
- Firm enough that I felt supported throughout the night—I fall asleep on my front, but I can wake up on my back or side, so I did not want to become submerged in a spongey mattress.
- Something that came packaged efficiently (not only do I hate unnecessary waste, but I also live in a building with a shoebox elevator).
A friend recommended Casper, an all-American pioneer of the mattress-in-a-box revolution. Luckily, the brand just launched their new and improved Casper Element mattress, the Element pro, which boasts ten inches of premium memory foam arranged into three carefully crafted layers. Casper claims that this new generation of the Element responds to your movements while supporting your weight—all at a reasonable price, compared to other mattresses with similar features. I’d never slept on memory foam before; my previous beds were almost exclusively cheap, firmer innerspring mattresses. So I ordered a queen and held my breath.
Less than four days later, my new Casper Element mattress was waiting in my lobby. The brand’s mattresses are vacuum-packed and tightly rolled into a maneuverable—albeit heavy—four-foot-tall box. It was easy to slide the recognizable blue-and-white striped container into the elevator and down the hallway to my flat, though this would have been near impossible to do alone in a walk up apartment. Once in my bedroom, I just had to extract the tightly packed mattress and unfurl it on the floor. (I hadn’t yet gotten a bed frame just yet). The sheer weight of the mattress made this step slightly cumbersome as I was working alone, yet not even five minutes later, I successfully unveiled my new mattress (magic!). In the past, I had seen vacuumed-packed units take a few hours to inflate to their full potential, and often accompanied by unpleasant chemical odors attributed to off-gassing. Happily, my Element pro was ready to test immediately, with no unwelcome odors ruining the experience. As I sprawled on the bed, admiring my efforts, I swear I could already feel the bed’s contouring support propping me up while the foam layers conformed to my body.
Barely two nights on my new all-foam mattress, I was a true convert. In the days before it arrived I’d started developing neck and lower back pains from the poorly constructed twin bed I was using. I never really thought extensively about mattresses before, yet it seems as though the sleep experts at Casper converged to design this affordable, luxurious product, focused on delivering responsive support and comfort to all kinds of sleepers. Casper cites that the top layer of Airscape foam on the Element pro has tiny perforations to promote airflow and cool your body heat to the perfect temperature all night long, and it’s true. And if you share a bed, know the memory foam has great motion isolation that works to contain your movements to your side of the bed. No more waking up partners in the middle of the night with every turn! The only downside? Little edge support. When sitting on the very edge of the bed (like, to put on socks), the mattress sags more than its spring-based counterparts. A small price to pay.