Ledger Nano X crypto wallet review: Improved in every way
Wireless • Large screen • Supports a huge number of cryptocurrencies
Pricey • Could be more intuitive
The Ledger Nano X is a great cryptocurrency hardware wallet. It fixes all the issues that its predecessor had, but does so at twice the price — which is still alright if you’re serious about crypto.
If you’re serious about cryptocurrency, one gadget that you simply must have is a hardware cryptocurrency wallet. One of the most popular such wallets is Ledger’s Nano S — a USB flash drive-sized, practical device that supports nearly every cryptocurrency you can think of.
But the Nano S has been around for a couple of years, and its age is showing — it’s fairly slow and its memory is limited, meaning it only works with a couple (typically 3) of different cryptocurrencies at the same time.
In January, Ledger announced a new hardware wallet, the Ledger Nano X. It’s a significant improvement over the Nano S in several key areas: It’s faster, has a bigger screen, it’s wireless, and it can support many more coins (up to 100) at the same time.
At $119, the Nano X also significantly pricier than the $59 Nano S, and now I’ve had the chance to test a review unit out and see whether the price premium is worth it.
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First, a short introduction to hardware cryptocurrency wallets. They are hardware devices which keep your crypto private keys and let you securely access your cryptocoins with a PIN. By requiring actual interaction with the hardware at certain points, such as pressing a key or confirming that a cryptocurrency address is accurate on the screen, they add a much-needed layer of security over software wallets.
Ledger’s Ledger Live software works well both on the PC and the iPhone. It’s available for all major platforms, including Android. macOS and Windows.
Image: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
On the Ledger Nano X, your cryptocurrency private keys (which are long strings of symbols that let you spend your cryptocoins) are kept “isolated” in a “secure element” chip and none of the applications interacting with the Nano X never get to see them. Even if you plug the Nano X into a compromised PC, your private key should remain safe.
Setting up
As is the case with most hardware wallets, setting up the Nano X for the first time takes a while, but the process is largely painless. The device is, again, USB thumb-like in size, though it is a little bigger than the Nano S. It comes with a very short set of instructions, three seed phrase cards, and a USB-C to USB-A c
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