I'm still mourning the loss of the Manstad, now there was a comfortable and good looking sofa bed!

I don't love the look of the Friheten but I've heard it's pretty comfortable.

I haven't slept on any of them, but they sure are ugly and cheap looking. I'd consider trading your ikea gift card and buying something elsewhere if I were you and there aren't any other big ticket items you need from Ikea.

I think I like the look of the holmsund the best.

The IKEA method of adding cushions to make up the bed instead of a foldout mattress results in a much more comfortable sleep in my opinion. No backbreaking middle bar! I've slept on some pretty expensive (Simmons etc) sofa beds that were basically just torture devices.

Well, a simple solution to that, and one I would use with any sofa bed I bought from anyone, is just to use a sofabed air mattress. They make a huge difference in comfort on any sofabed frame.

One like this (no personal experience of this particular one, just an example):

http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/AirDream-Sleeper-Sofa-Bed-Mattress/4750780/product.html?refccid=B6NQAPELVNUKQ32KJC5ZLG3QTU&searchidx=0

They're not strictly air mattresses, a combination of air and coils.

Interesting idea! But seems a lot less convenient than pulling out a drawer.

Not sure what you mean. You replace your existing mattress and then you only have the pump up/air release when you want to sleep/fold it back up again.

I've known folks who've used similar mattresses on ikea sofabeds before, like Karlstad. One famous example was Kittie's Tudor City mini apartment that was quite popular here a few years back:

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/kitties-miniature-masterpieceh-104222