There are a few general things to consider when shopping for the best air mattress.
Price
Price is the primary criterion for most people searching for the best air mattress. A queen-size bed can cost as little as $30, while the most expensive air mattresses can cost hundreds of dollars. A higher price doesn't always mean a taller air bed, a better air mattress, better air pressure, a self-inflating mattress, a better sleeping surface, more comfort or a decent night's sleep.
Inflation
The best air mattresses have a built-in electric pump that plugs into a wall socket. Some have a battery-powered external rechargeable pump, which usually runs on four D-cells. A few come with a manual hand or foot pump. The plug-in pumps are usually powerful but heavy and loud. Battery-operated pumps are lighter and don't require a wall socket, but are typically less effective and less capable of fully inflating a mattress. A manual pump or a flat pump, on the other hand, can deliver a degree of firmness that the others can't match and need neither batteries nor an outlet, but will require a significant amount of physical labor to operate.
Here's an example of a manual foot pump for an outdoor air mattress.
Size
Although most queen-size air mattress options measure approximately 60 inches wide and 80 inches long, height is both a variable and a selling point. It may be a primary consideration for older or disabled people who would have trouble getting on or off a bed that's too low to the ground. Likewise, an overly mushy mattress will be harder to dismount.
Leakage
If you've ever tried to get a good night's rest on a bad air mattress before, you know that the touchstone for quality is how reliably it holds air. Nearly every air mattress is beset by customer reviews complaining about air leaks. You can tell that this is an industry that's familiar with these complaints: Every bed we tested was imprinted with disclaimers about how all air mattresses stretch when you inflate them and that you shouldn't just assume that they're leaking if they temporarily lose that initial level of firmness.
Yet many air mattresses, whether they're stretched out or not, do leak during the night, even if you top them off. This mitigates the credibility of some manufacturers' claims. Some beds are simply more durable and better constructed than others. Airtightness is tricky to judge, even after you inflate an air mattress, and may reveal itself only over time. As such, most manufacturers offer a one-year warranty or guarantee. A few extend that to two years. Others will give you 90 days and throw in a few vinyl patches to cover up a puncture wound.
