Honest Gear Reviews
Hardware-wallet and crypto-gear reviews scored against a published, weighted method — with the sub-scores and the reasons shown in full, cons always included, and affiliate relationships that never change a score.
Reviewed gear
Trezor Safe 3
Open-source firmware combined with a secure element — the most straightforward recommendation for a reader whose priority is being able to verify what the device does.
Ledger Nano X
A polished, broadly compatible hardware wallet with a certified secure element — held back for some readers by closed-source firmware and the company's trust history.
Coldcard Mk4
A Bitcoin-only device built for people who want a genuinely air-gapped workflow — deeply capable, and deliberately unfriendly to beginners.
Blockstream Jade
The most accessible fully open-source Bitcoin hardware wallet — with a security model that is a deliberate design trade-off rather than a certified secure element.
How we score
| Criterion | Weight |
|---|---|
| Security model | 30% |
| Ease of setup | 20% |
| Supported assets | 15% |
| Build quality | 15% |
| Value | 10% |
| Support & longevity | 10% |
Each device is rated on those six criteria, and the overall score is the weighted average — never a number we pick and then justify. An editorial score is a single considered opinion, which is why we publish it as a review rating and never as a fabricated aggregate of ratings we did not collect. The full method, including the research-based labelling rule, is on our review methodology page.
Where the money comes from
Some reviews contain affiliate links, always disclosed on the page itself. The score is set before any commercial consideration and is never influenced by whether a link earns us anything, we do not accept payment for favourable coverage, and we keep affiliate links off pure safety and security content such as our seed-phrase and scam-avoidance guides. See our affiliate disclosure. If we get a fact wrong, we correct it and log it at corrections.