Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress review: Stay cool with this supportive hybrid

The last Panda mattress we reviewed, the Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress Pro (originally just the Panda Hybrid), impressed us with its solid support and naturally hypoallergenic properties but struck us as too expensive. Can its simpler successor offer these advantages without the hefty price tag?

Yes, as long as you like your mattress on the firm side. The Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress may be described as “Original”, but actually is Panda’s newest hybrid mattress. The Hybrid Bamboo shares many of the qualities we praised in our review of the Pro, including its antibacterial cover and orthopaedic-grade foam. But with a price that’s around one-third cheaper than the Pro, it’s better value for money.

We gave the Pro four stars out of five, deducting a point for the high cost. To find out whether its more affordable stablemate deserves the full five stars, I slept on a double size Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress for four weeks in late summer. I prefer a softer surface than the Panda delivered, but on less subjective points I found the mattress to be a triumph and I’m happy to give it a Best Buy award.

Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress review: What you need to know

Like all hybrid mattresses, the 25cm thick Panda Hybrid combines a layer of pocket springs with several layers of different types of foam. The upper layers of foam aim to deliver cushioning and temperature regulation, while the lower layers provide support and durability.

This mattress has seven layers in total, if you include the zipped outer cover that you can remove and wash in the machine at a recommended 30°C. This outer cover comes off in one piece, including the non-slip polyester base, the fabric sides, the dark grey piping around the middle and the bamboo-infused fabric sleeping surface. The idea is that you unzip around the bottom edge of the mattress and then slide the whole thing off like a jacket.

The sleeping surface, which feels silky and soft to the touch, is infused with 34% bamboo yarn, which is naturally hypoallergenic and antibacterial. As with Panda’s other bamboo products, the mattress cover carries the Oeko-Tex Standard 100 label, to certify that the fabric contains no harmful materials.

There’s more bamboo in the foam layer immediately under the sleeping surface. This  “BioCell Foam” layer has an open-cell structure to help airflow and eliminate the dreaded heat-retention often associated with memory foam. It’s infused with what Panda calls “fresh bamboo” to combat odours and stop you overheating . The next two layers are made from supportive “DualFlex Foam”designed to absorb your weight, limit motion from springs and prevent that sinking feeling when you lie down.

Then come the individually-wrapped pocket springs. These are surrounded by four chunks of high-resilience foam to promote support, particularly at the edges of the mattress. There’s also a layer of high-resilience foam under the springs. When you turn the mattress on its side, even with the zipped cover completely removed, you can’t see or feel the springs on the bottom as you can in, say, the Emma NextGen Premium.

Despite its lack of bulk the Panda is a heavy mattress, with a single size weighing 29kg and the biggest Emperor size (200 x 200cm) tipping the scales at 59kg. Panda doesn’t give weights in between these extremes, but from my experience I would estimate that the double size Panda weighs about the same as the Simba Hybrid Pro, which is 40kg in a double.

READ NEXT: Best firm mattress

Like most hybrid mattresses, the Panda is designed to be slept on only one side, so it never needs flipping, but you should rotate it to keep it in good shape (every three to six months Panda recommends). There are handles tucked away on the non-slip base, and their unconventional position actually helped me when manoeuvring the mattress, particularly when trying to rotate it on my own.

All Panda mattresses come with a 100-night money-back trial, plus a ten-year warranty against manufacturing defects. Panda also offers a free mattress collection service. I didn’t know this when my mattress was delivered and the drivers didn’t mention it, so it’s worth mentioning it when you order if you have an old mattress you want to get rid of.

Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress review: Price and competition

The Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress starts at £649 for a single mattress, rising to £799 for a double, £889 for a king size and £959 for a super king. This mattress is also available as a UK small double (£789) and the gloriously spacious Emperor (£1,050). At the time of writing, it would appear that the Emperor is so popular it sold out.

In price terms, the Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress’ closest competitor is the Emma NextGen Premium: following a series of price drops (not including deals), this costs £739 in king size. I rate the Emma NextGen Premium highly, but it feels less durable than the Panda Hybrid so I think the Panda offers comparable value for money.

Both the Panda Hybrid and the Emma NextGen are fairly firm mattresses, so if you want something with a little more cushioning I’d recommend the Otty Pure Hybrid Bamboo & Charcoal Mattress, which is £850 for a king size. The Simba Hybrid Pro is also slightly softer but has a premium price tag of £1,329 in king size, just a few pounds more than the Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress Pro (£1,390).

The best alternatives and where to find them:

• Emma NextGen Premium | Check prices at Emma
• Otty Pure Hybrid | Check prices at Otty
• Eve Sleep Original Hybrid | Check prices at Eve
• Origin Hybrid | Check prices at Origin

Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress review: Comfort and performance

If you like a firm mattress, I suspect you’ll love the Panda Hybrid. Whether I sat on the edge, rolled onto my side, sat up to read or laid next to my husband, the mattress delivered amazing push-back that made every part of me feel supported.

For me, it was a little too much support. I don’t like soft mattresses but I am a small-proportioned side-sleeper, so my hips and shoulders need a bit more cushioning to feel comfortable. Admittedly, this is a personal preference and you may well disagree with me. For context, I’m used to sleeping on a Simba Hybrid Pro, which has a top layer of soft natural wool that I love but my husband finds too soft.

That said, both the Simba Hybrid Pro and the Panda Hybrid Bamboo are described by their manufacturers as “medium-firm”, so we may be splitting hairs here. To me, the Panda feels marginally too firm but many will love its solid support, especially those who struggle with back pain.

To illustrate my impressions of the Panda’s firmness, I ran tests using a pile of weights. Under 7.5kg, the Panda sank a total of 19mm – less than any other mattress I’ve tested under the same conditions, which suggests it’s the firmest and most supportive.

The HiGrid Premium Hybrid was the next most supportive, sinking 20mm, followed by the Emma NextGen Premium (25mm), the Emma NextGen Cooling (28mm) and the Simba Hybrid Pro (29mm). Softest of all was the Eve Wunderflip Premium Hybrid, which sank 36mm and felt too soft for even me.

The Panda also offers great edge support, so you won’t feel it giving way beneath you when you get out of bed. This edge-to-edge firmness, which is largely down to the springs and reinforced by the frame of high-density foam that encircles the springs on all sides, also gives the mattress a much more durable feel than I’d expected given its mid-range price.

There’s not a lot of bounce to the Panda Hybrid, even on a slatted base, but an advantage of that is that it isolates movement very well. If you sleep next to a restless partner or pet, you’ll welcome the way the Panda Hybrid absorbs their tossing and turning so it has less chance of disturbing your sleep.

The mattress did a great job of keeping the temperature down on warm nights. It’s not marketed as a cooling mattress, but I felt that the Panda Hybrid allowed the air to circulate, and it didn’t seem to retain my body heat like conventional foam mattresses can.

My subjective impression was that the Panda Hybrid kept me just as cool as the Emma NextGen Cooling and the Simba Hybrid Pro. To put this to the test, I ran an experiment using a heat pad and thermocouple. The Panda’s surface temperature fell quickly from 50°C to 26.9°C after four minutes, and then further to 24.5°C after 10 minutes. Ambient temperature was only a few degrees lower at 20°C, so I was amazed by how well the surface cooled down.

For comparison, after 10 minutes the Panda fell closer to ambient temperature than most mattresses I’ve tested, second only to the Emma NextGen Cooling, which is specially designed to keep you cool at night and costs hundreds of pounds more (£1,259 for a king size).

I wasn’t so keen on the full-shell nature of the removable cover. It’s handy to be able to wash the whole surface of your mattress, but removing the entire thing by sliding it off the foam inside is a cumbersome process. You have to keep the foam innards of the mattress safe from stains and moisture while the cover is being washed, and then you have to wrestle the cover back on again.

As with all removable mattress covers, make absolutely sure it’s dry before putting it back on. This one takes longer to dry than most, and you can’t tumble dry it.

Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress review: Verdict

At first glance, you might not expect the Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress to be a premium performer, because it lacks the sumptuous thickness and hefty price tag of some of its hybrid rivals. But this great-looking mattress punches well above its weight.

The Panda Hybrid is a top performer on temperature regulation, motion isolation and orthopaedic support. It aced my tests for cooling and firmness, and would sit comfortably among our top picks for best cooling mattresses and best mattresses for a bad back while costing significantly less than many of them.

I craved a little more cushioning than this firm mattress offered, and other side sleepers may also decide they need a softer surface. But the mattress’s exceptional support, which it maintains right across the sleeping surface, will eventually adapt to your body and sleeping position and could be just the orthopaedic bed you’re looking for.