Home Australian Geographic Adventure OZtrail 3D FATMAT 1500: Tested

OZtrail 3D FATMAT 1500: Tested

The Fatmat 1500 offers the closest comfort levels to home you’re likely to find when camping. Image credit: Mark Watson

Our first impression of the OZtrail 3D FATMAT 1500 was: “It’s huge!!!” Our second impression was: “Ooh, it’s so comfy!!!”

Obviously, the main aim of the game with a camp mattress is to be comfy, so this is definitely a good start, but there’s also no point in having a super-comfy mattress if it’s so big you can’t actually take it with you anywhere… Although this one may well be so comfortable it’s worth leaving everything else at home, just to ensure you have room for it.

Design

There’s no getting around the size of the FATMAT 1500 – it’s immediately apparent the second you lay eyes on it. And when we say it’s big, we don’t mean it’s big in the sense that you’d only take it car-camping rather than hike-camping, we mean you’d really need to seriously consider the size of it into your packing to ensure you would be able to fit it in the car in addition to the other camping necessities. For those that like hard figures, that means that packed down, it comes in at 750mm x 480mm x 330mm. 

Weighing in at 8.5kg, it’s not overly heavy despite its bulk, and fits easily into the supplied carry bag. The carry bag itself comes with compression straps to assist with compacting the mat down as much as possible, as well as straps that allow it to be carried as a backpack which makes it a bit easier to maneuver around (although if you’re sub-6ft like my trusty mattress testing assistant is, it’s pretty big on the back!).

In the field

Once the FATMAT 1500 is removed from the carry bag, inflating is a breeze thanks to the 360º wide open twist valve that is simple and easy to use; you simply twist to inflate. This then gets straight to work inflating the 150mm thick, high density, open cell memory foam mattress. And that’s where the comfort factor really kicks in. 

As soon as you lie down on the mat, it’s immediately comfortable. And not just inflatable camping mattress comfortable; this thing could probably rival the comfort of some folks’ beds at home. The soft-touch, non-slip, low noise sleep surface is exactly what it says it is. It feels supremely soft to the touch, you don’t slide off it and it’s totally quiet, it doesn’t rustle or squeak at all. 

The surface and sides of the mat are made of TPU coated 30D stretch pongee fabric, and the base is a heftier 75D of the same fabric, to ensure maximum waterproofing and insulation all round. The base is also anti-slip which helps to reduce any movement and sliding around on the tent floor. 

You also can’t feel another person move at all, even if they are doing a fair bit of tossing and turning, which is a definite plus. At 2010mm x 1500mm it’s a decent Queen-sized mattress that is more than ample for two people. If you can drag yourself off the mat and away from the comfort, it’s also surprisingly quick and easy to deflate and pack away. You simply twist the 360º valves again and fold and roll, squeezing the air out as you go before securing with the compression straps and then putting it back into the carry bag. There’s no cramming it in, either; if you’ve deflated it properly, there’s plenty of space to get it back in the bag without doing any wrestling. 

The final word on the OZtrail 3D FATMAT 1500

Overall, we can see why OZtrail says the 3D FATMAT 1500 boasts ’market-leading comfort’: it really is impossible to fault the comfort factor, despite the fact the comfort comes at a cost in terms of size. If you can fit it in your camping vehicle – in any way – we reckon it’s a keeper; the total comfort it affords will ensure a magic night out, every single time, when you’re camping.

RRP $500 See OZtrail for more info on this and other OZtrail FATMAT sleeping mats.

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