Simba GO review: eco-friendly mattress takes luxe to the max

This Simba GO Hybrid mattress review could be much shorter, if you are in a hurry. It's easily among the best mattresses I've slept on, and gives every night a touch of 5-star hotel luxury. It does also have something of a 5-star hotel price, but if you can afford to invest heavily in your sleep, you won't regret the purchase.

Simba is one of the world's foremost mattress brands, and it currently holds the top spot in our best mattress guide. You can't get higher praise than that. The Simba GO is significantly more expensive than most of its other mattresses – and indeed, most of those from its rival, online, bed in a box brands. That, in truth, is the only reason I've given it four stars here rather than five.

The Simba GO Hybrid Mattress is also the first from the brand to use latex in its construction. That's part of what makes it the most eco-friendly Simba mattress, as latex is sustainable, natural and – ultimately – biodegradable. Simba claims the GO has "just half the carbon footprint of traditional hybrids," and also easier than its other products to disassemble and recycle at the end of its life. Speaking of which, the GO comes with a 10-year guarantee and a no-risk, 200-day trial. If you decide you don't like it during that period, Simba will come and take it off your hands, as is now commonplace with modern mattress brands.

What's not to like? Well, as mentioned, there's the price…

Simba GO Hybrid Mattress review: price

This might decide your verdict on the GO before we even get on to its many strengths. This eco-friendly mattress is priced as follows:

Single: £1,579
Double: £2,299 – this is the one I tested
King: £2,399
Super king: £2,749

This pricing is pretty much exactly in line with the range-topping Simba Hybrid Luxe. That has 10 layers to the 6 layers that the Simba GO has, so you could infer that you're paying a little bit of a 'green tax' here.

Like most online mattress brands, Simba frequent offers generous discounts on its mattresses, and you'll find the GO with as much as 60% off when its sales come around (see the best Simba deals for the latest sales). However, it appears that discounts on the GO are slightly less commonplace than on the rest of its range. For instance, at the time we published this review, the brand was having a Valentine sale, with 40% off most of its mattresses, including the aforementioned Hybrid Luxe… but there was no deal to be had on the GO. So, if your heart is set on this mattress, you will have to keep a close eye on the deals widget below.

In the meantime, you can find out a lot more about the GO at Simba's website. Curiously, this particular mattress is a little hidden on the site, perhaps suggesting they see it as a bit of an outlier – no pun intended – in their range. For your convenience, here is a direct link to the GO page.

Simba GO Hybrid Mattress review: design

As is now standard, the GO arrives in a relatively compact box, swaddled in thick plastic shrink wrap. I'm not sure how eco-friendly that is, but it does make shipping and installation much simpler, and there is something rather magical about seeing a squat column of compressed foam expand into a full-size mattress before your very eyes, when you carefully cut through the plastic wrap.

Most mattresses of this type absolutely honk of plastic when you first unwrap them but this was not the case with the Simba GO. Nonetheless, out of habit, I left it for 3 days before starting to sleep on it, just in case this was necessary for full expansion and off-gassing.

One important thing to note here is you will probably need to be either fairly fit and strong to get the Simba GO into position on your bed, or you'll need to call for help from a second person – your partner perhaps, who should be suitably grateful that you've bought them such a fantastic mattress to share, and hence more than willing to help. Seriously though, this thing is hefty, so take care.

The first thing I noticed about the mattress once it had pinged up to full size was the curved fitting of the cotton cover. You can see this in Simba's pics plus my own below and in truth it looks a bit odd; a little unfinished, even. Obviously once you've put a sheet and duvet on top, nobody is ever going to know, so I wouldn't exactly describe this as a deal breaker. It's probably worth noting that this cover is not removable, so if you are someone who cleans their mattress it will have to be done carefully, with a damp cloth. I usually just make do with an occasional vacuum clean and a touch of Febreeze, personally but you can see how to clean your mattress here.

The second thing I noticed, because it was hard to miss, was that the GO was too short for my bed, which was a little bit of a downer. That's because I have a European sized double bed, which gives you a length of 200cm, with a standard double mattress width of 140cm or so. For reasons I have never understood, UK double beds are only 190cm long. A few years ago, this might have been quite a major problem for Simba, as Ikea sold a lot of European-length beds, but looking at Ikea's website now, they seem to have largely moved over to UK sizing.

So unless you are like me, and still using an Ikea bed you bought 20 years ago, this probably won't be a problem for you. In truth, it wasn't much of a problem for me either – the duvet usually covered the 10cm gap left at the bottom of the bed, and it wasn't like my feet were hanging off the end of the mattress.

More importantly, the Simba GO Hybrid Mattress delivers where you want it most – in terms of depth. This big boy is a whopping 30cm deep, which is noticeably more sumptuous than the UK standard of 25cm to 28cm. This is certainly not a case of 'never mind the quality, feel the width' (or depth), either. Underneath that curvy/wonky cotton cover – which is beautifully soft, incidentally – you're supported by breathable foam, numerous pocket springs and something called a 'supportcore base'. Which brings me neatly on to…

Simba GO Hybrid Mattress review: Comfort

Oh my god, this thing is SO comfortable. I know that is exactly what you should expect when spending well over £2,000 on a mattress, but I really cannot overstate how much I enjoy sleeping on it. Of course, the balance of firmness and softness you like in a mattress is very subjective, but this immediately felt 'just right' for me. It felt supportive but without being too firm. It felt soft without feeling at all squashy. I could roll around into different positions without the change of posture bring a problem. There was no 'roll-together' with my partner.

Now, it must be said that my partner initially felt the mattress was not quite firm enough, although he was happy enough with it overall, and, like me, ultimately found he was sleeping better. So, if you are a fan of truly austere, super-firm mattresses, perhaps the GO is not for you. Larger people or front sleepers might also find it's not quite firm enough, I suppose. That aside, I'd say it should suit the vast majority of sleepers. Under Simba's money-back guarantee, you've got 200 nights to find out, of course.

I found the edge support was also very good – no danger of rolling off this baby – and while I have read some complaints elsewhere about mediocre isolation, I didn't find I was disturbed by my partner moving around. Temperature control was also exemplary. I have quite a modern flat that is almost too well insulated, so this is an important factor. I tried it out on cold nights where I'd left the window open, and the mattress was invitingly warm. With the window closed and the heating on, the bedroom soon heats up, and I found that the GO responded very well to this too, stopping me from sweating and overheating.

Simba GO Hybrid Mattress review: verdict

The Simba GO mattress helped me sleep better and in more comfort. I don't think you can ask for much more from a mattress. Personally, I am not that bothered about its eco credentials, but that could be an important factor for some shoppers as well.

Yes, the Simba GO is about twice as expensive as my usual mattress – and also slightly shorter. However, for those who can afford to make this kind of an investment in their sleep, it's well worth the outlay, in my opinion. Its an ultra-comfortable, expertly designed mattress and a genuine life-enhancer. The very best kind of snooze-fest, in fact!

Finally, a quick note on the star rating. It’s always a little complicated scoring more premium products. There’s no doubt that this is a 5-star mattress in terms of quality. However, there is such a step up in expensiveness from most mattress in a box products that I ultimately decided to give it 4 stars.

Simba GO Hybrid Mattress review: Alternatives to consider

If a green mattress is what you seek, the Panda London Hybrid Bamboo mattress is the most obvious rival to the Simba GO.  At £1,290 for a double, it's not quite what you'd call 'cheap' but it's 50% more affordable than the Simba GO. In our Panda London Hybrid Bamboo mattress review, we handed it a full 5 stars, so there's no doubting its quality.

The other obvious 'rival' to the GO is the same brand's other premium mattress, like the Simba Hybrid Luxe. This has almost identical pricing to the GO and packs in even more layers. I haven't tried it so I can't directly compare but I would assume that it is slightly more sumptuous and slightly less eco-friendly. We gave it 4 stars in our Simba Hybrid Luxe review.