Trezor Safe 5 review: open source finally gets a touchscreen

Trezor has spent a decade making the strongest philosophical argument in hardware wallets — you should be able to read the code that guards your money — while shipping devices that were harder to use than the closed alternatives. The Safe 5 is the first model where that trade-off mostly disappears.

The colour touchscreen is the change you feel immediately. Comparing a receiving address character by character on a two-line display is exactly the security step people skip; on the Safe 5 the address is legible at a glance, and passphrase entry no longer feels like a punishment.

Underneath, the secure element answers the criticism that mattered most technically. Earlier Trezors were vulnerable to physical extraction by an attacker with the device and the right equipment. That class of attack is now materially harder, without the firmware going closed in the process — the combination the company's users have asked for for years.

Trezor Suite remains a strong companion. It runs locally, does not demand an account, and its coin-control and labelling tools are better than anything in Ledger Live for people who care about privacy hygiene.

What has not changed is breadth. Support is deliberately conservative, and if your holdings stray into newer chains you will find gaps a Ledger owner will not. The absence of Bluetooth is also a real ergonomic cost: mobile signing means carrying a cable, and in practice it means most people will use this from a desk.

Price is the last friction. The Safe 5 now sits at the premium end of a market where the cheaper option supports more assets. You are paying for auditability, and that is a legitimate thing to pay for — but it should be a conscious choice.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5. For long-term storage of major assets by someone who wants to verify rather than trust, this is the best hardware wallet on sale.