This mattress arrived much faster than I expected (within 3 days) so I was not quite ready for it. I picked this one because I have chronic back pain and was hoping it would help. Lugging the 90lb sack around by myself was tough- especially since there were no handles and the outer sack (which resembles the sack that a sleeping bag might be placed in) already had tears in it. I found that I had to treat it like a log and rolled it end over end until I got it to the bed. After several attempts to slide it onto the bed myself I caved in and called my brother to come over to squat-lift it on to the bed. I had wanted to keep the sack and reuse it, but since it was already ripped, and the cord was knotted so tightly that I had to cut it to get it to open, my brother ended up just ripping the sack of of it. The sack itself was held tightly on by two strips of clear plastic. Inside the sack was another layer of some sort of white woven plastic. My brother had to carefully cut that off as well (but it is rather messy as some of the strands wanted to fly all over). Then there was another clear plastic bag around the mattress. We carefully removed that and rolled the mattress out onto the bed and worked together to get it moved in to position.
The lower part of the mattress cover seems to be a soft microsuade. The white part on top seems somewhat soft and it has some sort of gray floral detail with small white bumps making it more course than the white part. The lower part (which is a light shade of brown) was darker than it seems on my screen but that is not a problem. Additionally, there is a corded trim bridging the brown part and white part that is about as thick as my pinky finger. It looks pretty but I don't know if it will stick out when I finally put sheets on it. I would post pictures of the cord detail if I knew how to submit images. The mattress cover was put on slightly crooked (either that or it got pulled askew when I was moving the mattress around) so I thought that something was wrong when I checked on the mattress later to see if it was puffing up. It has been over 48 hours and I'm not sure if it has fully puffed as the 3-inch soft layer only seems to be about 2-inches. I'll give it some more time.
I also noticed about a 3 foot long dark spot on the cover near the edge and about a 6 inch spot with some black streaks where I guess it got dirty somehow prior to being packaged. It's not a big deal and I haven't contacted customer service about it yet. I'm still trying to decide if I want to bother with that.
I did go ahead and sleep on it within 14 hours of putting it on the bed since I had nowhere else to sleep and it is more comfortable than the pillowtop I'd been sleeping on. I slept better and felt more refreshed than I had in quite awhile and my back (which was sore from all of the lifting) seemed to feel better afterward. Normally when I wake up I feel like I haven't gotten enough sleep and since I got the new mattress I've been waking up earlier than usual but feeling like I got a full eight hours of sleep when I only got five hours of sleep. I suffer from chronic fatigue so I haven't woken up feeling so refreshed in years. Sleeping on my back seems more comfortable than sleeping on my side as it still puts some pressure on my hip and pelvis (but hopefully it will soften with time)-- just not as much as the previous mattress.
For people who move around in their sleep a lot, I would recommend scooting over a bit to be on a different spot if shifting from back to side. I found that the mattress stays a bit mashed from my back and is not as soft on my side if I roll over on the same spot, so I just move over to where the mattress is still puffy and soft and wait for the other part to puff back up. I'm not sure how long it takes as I haven't attempted to time it. Fortunately I have the mattress all to myself so I can move to different spots, lie diagonally, and take up the whole thing if I want.
The mattress isn't perfect, but its still much better than my last one. It's a pity they don't have it in Full size, because my brother now wants one.
So far I am quite pleased with this purchase. If anything changes along the way I will post an update.