Head to head — the main decision
Ledger vs Trezor
This is the choice most New Zealanders are actually making, and it is usually presented as a moral question. It isn't. It is a trade between verifiable code on one side and price, availability and app quality on the other.
- NZ$99 Ledger Nano S Plus, delivered locally
- ≈NZ$330 Trezor Safe 5, landed from Europe
- EAL6+ Both use certified secure elements
- Open Only one publishes its firmware
The short answer, before the detail
Both companies make good devices and neither is a mistake. If we had to compress this whole page into two sentences: buy a Trezor Safe 5 if you want firmware anyone can read and you are willing to wait two to three weeks for a European parcel; buy a Ledger Nano S Plus if you want cold storage this week for NZ$99 with the best app in the category.
What we would push back on is spending three months deciding. The gap between these two devices is small. The gap between owning either one and leaving your crypto on an exchange is enormous — and in New Zealand, where Cryptopia was hacked for roughly NZ$30 million, Dasset went into liquidation with about NZ$6.3 million of customer cryptoassets unaccounted for, and Easy Crypto stopped trading altogether on 30 March 2026, that gap is not theoretical.
| Wallet | Our grade | Maker RRP | NZ landed | Key storage | Source code | Interface score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ledger Nano S Plus Ledger · official site | A 8.8/10 | US$59 | NZ$99 at GROOV | ST33K1M5, CC EAL6+ | Partly — SE apps closed | |
| Trezor Safe 5 Trezor (SatoshiLabs) · official site | A 8.5/10 | US$169 | ≈NZ$330 landed | EAL6+ certified | Firmware fully open |
| Property | Ledger | Trezor |
|---|---|---|
| EAL6+ secure element | Yes | Yes |
| Firmware published | No | Yes |
| Cheapest model | US$59 / NZ$99 local | US$79 imported |
| Stocked in New Zealand | Yes — several sellers | Intermittent |
| First-party mobile app | Yes, Bluetooth | Desktop-first |
| Native staking | Yes, in Ledger Live | Third-party only |
| Customer data breaches | Two — 2020 and Jan 2026 | None reported |
| Monero accepted at checkout | No | Yes |
| Coin control in first-party app | No | Yes, for Bitcoin |
| Consumer Guarantees Act cover | Yes, via NZ retailers | Only if bought locally |
Where Trezor genuinely wins
You can read the code. This is the whole argument and it is a good one. Trezor publishes its firmware, so an independent researcher can inspect the exact code path that handles your recovery phrase. With Ledger you are trusting a company's assertion plus a certification lab's assessment of the chip. Both models ship real products; only one is checkable.
The Safe 7 architecture is genuinely ahead. Pairing the auditable TROPIC01 chip with an Infineon Optiga element certified to EAL6+ and a separate STM32U5 microcontroller means three independent layers protect the seed. That is the most substantive answer anyone has given to the old criticism that certified silicon and open firmware were mutually exclusive.
No history of leaking your address. Trezor has not had a customer data exposure. Ledger has had two: roughly 270,000 customers' names, phone numbers and physical addresses in July 2020, and a further set through its payment processor Global-e disclosed on 5 January 2026. Neither touched a key. Both put verified crypto owners' home addresses into circulation, and after the 2020 leak some Ledger owners received extortion letters and counterfeit devices in the post.
Coin control and Monero at checkout. Trezor Suite gives you Bitcoin coin control, which matters for the traceability of your holdings and which Ledger Live does not offer. And the Trezor store accepts Monero, which is the only meaningful privacy option at the point of purchase from any major manufacturer.
Where Ledger genuinely wins
Price and availability, decisively. NZ$99 delivered inside New Zealand from an authorised reseller in Christchurch, with nothing further to pay, against roughly NZ$330 landed for a Safe 5 and a two to three week wait. PB Tech and Mighty Ape also stock Ledger, so you can have one tomorrow. If the realistic alternative for someone is "keep procrastinating and leave it on an exchange", that difference matters more than a half-point of architecture score.
Ledger Live is the best app in the category. Not by a small margin. Firmware updates, coin management, address verification, staking and portfolio views are all handled in a way a non-technical person can follow without help. Of every device we set up, the Nano S Plus was the one where a complete beginner got from sealed box to verified receiving address fastest and safest.
Mobile. Bluetooth on the Nano X, Gen5, Flex and Stax with a genuinely good first-party phone app. Trezor Suite is desktop-first, and the Safe 3 and Safe 5 are USB-C only. If your wallet needs to work from your pocket, this is a real gap.
Native staking. Ledger Live stakes several proof-of-stake chains with the delegation signed on the device. Trezor has no first-party equivalent, so staking means third-party interfaces. See our staking wallets page.
The irony worth noticing
Ledger's data breaches are the strongest argument for buying a Ledger from a New Zealand reseller rather than from Ledger. GROOV in Christchurch imports sealed stock directly from Ledger France and dispatches within 24 business hours. You get the hardware, the app and the local warranty — without your home address entering Ledger's own customer database.
By situation
Which one, for who
The generic answer is unhelpful. Here is the specific one for the five situations we get asked about most.
First hardware wallet, want it this week
Ledger Nano S Plus. NZ$99 from GROOV, PB Tech or Mighty Ape, EAL6+ secure element, the easiest setup of anything we tested. The best device is the one you will actually finish setting up.
Open source is a principle, not a preference
Trezor Safe 5. Wait the two to three weeks. If verifiable firmware is the reason you want a hardware wallet at all, buying a closed one defeats the purpose and you will be irritated about it for years.
You want to stake from the device
Ledger. Ledger Live's native staking for several chains, signed on the device, has no first-party Trezor equivalent. Keys stay isolated while rewards accrue, which beats staking on a platform.
Your address leaked in the Ledger breach
Trezor, and enable a passphrase. If a list with your name, phone number and street address is circulating alongside the fact that you own crypto, the relevant threat is physical. A passphrase means anyone who finds your written words gets a decoy wallet.
Perspective
This decision matters less than you think
Almost nobody loses crypto because they chose the wrong reputable hardware wallet. They lose it because they never tested their backup, stored their recovery phrase in a cloud note, or typed it into a page that looked like support. Pick either device, then spend your remaining attention on the backup guide.
Full reviews
The thing both of them fail at equally
It is worth ending here, because the Ledger-versus-Trezor argument absorbs an enormous amount of attention that would be better spent elsewhere.
Neither device protects you from approving a malicious transaction. If you connect a Ledger or a Trezor to a decentralised application and authorise an unlimited token allowance to a hostile contract, the device signed exactly what you told it to. It performed perfectly. Your funds left anyway.
Neither device protects you from typing your recovery phrase into a phishing page. At that moment you have handed over the master key voluntarily, and the secure element — EAL6+, open firmware, three independent layers, whatever — is completely irrelevant.
And neither device protects you from an untested backup. If your handwritten twenty-four words have a transposed pair, both brands will fail to restore identically, and both will fail permanently.
Those three failure modes account for the overwhelming majority of real losses. Which is why our closing advice on this page is the same as everywhere else: pick the device that gets you to a funded, backed-up, tested cold wallet fastest, then go and read the scams guide and the backup guide. Those two pages will do more for your security than agonising over a half-point of architecture score.
Ledger vs Trezor FAQ
The questions we get asked most
Which is better, Ledger or Trezor?
For a New Zealander buying today, the honest answer is that both are good and the decision comes down to one question: does verifiable firmware matter more to you than local stock and app quality? If yes, buy a Trezor Safe 5 and accept a two to three week wait. If no, buy a Ledger Nano S Plus for NZ$99 from GROOV in Christchurch and have it this week. We would not argue with either choice, and the difference between them is far smaller than the difference between having a hardware wallet and not.
Is Trezor safer than Ledger?
On architecture, marginally — and for a specific reason. Both use EAL6+ certified secure elements on their current models, so the silicon is comparable. Trezor's advantage is that its firmware is published, so an independent researcher can read the code that touches your seed rather than accepting an assurance. Trezor also has no history of leaking customer addresses, while Ledger has had two such exposures. We score Trezor Safe 5 at 9.1 on security architecture and Ledger Nano S Plus at 8.4, and that half-point-plus gap is essentially the openness and the breach record.
Is Ledger or Trezor cheaper in New Zealand?
Ledger, clearly, and it is not close. A Nano S Plus is NZ$99 delivered domestically from GROOV in Christchurch, or around NZ$95 to NZ$120 from PB Tech or Mighty Ape, with nothing further to pay. A Trezor Safe 5 imported from Europe lands at roughly NZ$330 including GST and shipping, and a Safe 3 at roughly NZ$160. The cheapest credible cold storage available to a New Zealand buyer is a Ledger, and that is a real consideration if the alternative is not buying a device at all.
Can I move my wallet from a Ledger to a Trezor?
Yes, easily, because both use the standard BIP39 recovery phrase. Your 24 words will restore in either brand, in a BitBox, or in free software — the coins were never on the device, only the key that proves they are yours. That portability is the single best argument for writing down the phrase properly: your access does not depend on any one company. If you are migrating because you no longer trust the old device, generate a fresh wallet on the new one and send the funds across as a transaction instead of importing the old phrase.
Does either work better with a phone?
Ledger, distinctly. The Nano X, Gen5, Flex and Stax connect over Bluetooth to a well-built first-party mobile app, and Ledger Live on a phone does not feel like a compromised version of the desktop experience. Trezor Suite is desktop-first with no full-featured first-party mobile app, and the Safe 3 and Safe 5 are USB-C only — mobile use means an adapter and a third-party wallet. The Trezor Safe 7 adds Bluetooth and NFC, which closes the gap, but only at US$249.
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