Therm-a-Rest NeoLoft Review: The Most Comfortable Pad I've Read About, at a Price in Ounces

Whose number is 4.7? Therm-a-Rest's. OutdoorGearLab notes it's the maker's claimed value, found with the ASTM standard Therm-a-Rest helped design, and calls it realistic. That's a rating, not a lab result of OutdoorGearLab's own.

The three testers who wrote about cold all land somewhere different, and I love it when that happens. CleverHiker slept on it around 28°F with a 15°F bag and found the pair comfortable. Treeline's tester used it mostly in the 40s, down to 34°F, with no cold spots. And one reader in SectionHiker's comments says they get cold on it below 40 degrees and carry extra ground protection.

That last one is one person, so I give it the weight of one person. CleverHiker's conclusion is the one I'd plan around: good for three seasons and moderate shoulder season, and for snow and frozen ground it trusts a higher-R pad such as the NeoAir XTherm NXT.

Here's the sum that explains the score. OutdoorGearLab tested the NeoLoft beside the NEMO Tensor All-Season and weighed both. On OutdoorGearLab's scale the NeoLoft weighed 25.3 oz, with a claimed R 4.7 and 4.6 in of height. OutdoorGearLab's Tensor All-Season weighed 15.4 oz, with a claimed R 5.4 and 3.5 in of height.

Divide warmth by weight. 4.7 over 25.3 is 0.19 R per ounce. 5.4 over 15.4 is 0.35. The Tensor gives you nearly twice the warmth per ounce, and it's 9.9 oz lighter.

So what do those 9.9 oz buy? About 1.1 inches more height, a quiet stretch-knit top and the side rails. You aren't paying for warmth. You're paying for not bottoming out under a hip, and Backpacker says the extra height is enough to keep even heavier side sleepers from doing that.

One more. On a 20 lb base weight, which is 320 oz, 25.3 oz is 8% of what you carry. On a 12 lb kit it's 13%. Same pad. Different verdict.

It's for side sleepers, base campers, and anyone who drives to the trailhead and wants the thickest pad in the car. SectionHiker calls it a little heavy for backpacking and a very good pad for base camping, which is the fairest one-line summary I read.

It's not for thru-hikers or gram-counters. At about 25 oz, it's 9.9 oz heavier than the Tensor All-Season, and CleverHiker says buyers focused on weight have better choices. It's not for snow either.

Two alternatives come up in the reviews. The NEMO Tensor All-Season, for lighter and warmer. The Big Agnes Rapide SL Insulated, which Backpacker names as the closest rival: more than four inches thick, R 4.8, raised rails. Backpacker lists the Rapide SL at 17 oz, and Treeline lists the insulated Rapide SL at 18 oz. Either way, 7 or 8 oz lighter. That's the trade in one number.

The band ran $230-250 on October 15, 2026.

A confession about this page's own past. An earlier version cited thermarestco.com as the maker's page. It isn't. Therm-a-Rest's site is thermarest.com, and the other site describes the NeoLoft as a self-inflating foam pad rated R 4.4, which matches none of the 5 reviews I read. I've removed it, and the maker's weight here comes from thermarest.com.

Lookalike sites are a real hazard when you shop for gear. If a spec on a "maker" page disagrees with every reviewer, check the address bar before you check the spec.

One more find from OutdoorGearLab: the NeoLoft packs to 4.0 L, and the Tensor All-Season packs to 2.1 L. Nearly double the space in your pack. Treeline puts the packed size at 5.7 x 9.5 inches, about a Nalgene and a bit.