I've been dabbling in BTC for past few years – never mined but I did buy BTC here and there (my first big purchases were in $150/BTC days… wish I was there when BTC was $15 ;). Tech problems with online wallets (sites being down) + little bit fear mongering got me to finally bite the bullet and give hardware wallet a try.

Initially I looked into getting Trezor, but since it was out of stock I went with Ledger Nano S. Here is the pic:

http://imgur.com/gallery/1eiFq

After going through setup process, updating firmware, resetting device and restoring seed I can say I'm pretty impressed. It is definitely well rounded and really useful device. I now completely understand why these devices have been selling like hotcakes. Having physical representation of your virtual funds is pretty interesting phenomenon to experience… even when you are programmer and understand that technically Bitcoins are not stored on this device.

The only thing that bothers me is that you need to install Chrome in order to access Bitcoin app… but other than that – viewing your wallet, balances, receiving and sending funds – it's all there and UI is implemented pretty well.

So in a nutshell – you are practically paying $50-$100 to buy peace of mind. I.e. you no longer need to worry whether your online wallet provider will be hacked… or is their site online… or how do they generate wallets… or is your computer compromised… etc.

For most people who are into BTC, price tag vs what you get is pretty reasonable… and I completely understand why these devices are so often out of stock.

If you have any questions – shoot – I'll be glad to answer!