On the pillars that count most for a hardware wallet — chip certification, true self-custody, standardized recovery — the Nano S Plus performs above its price, and its EAL6+ secure element genuinely out-certifies the costlier Nano X. What it gives up is reach: no wireless, no iOS, limited staking, and a screen that taxes anything beyond simple sends. Ledger's family-wide trust history, from the 2020 address leak to the Recover episode, keeps any Ledger from scoring like its hardware alone would deserve, and it applies to this device no more and no less than to its siblings. Within the Ledger ladder it slots cleanly under the Nano X at 7.5 and the Flex at 8.0, and the gaps are bought with Bluetooth, battery, iOS, and screen — never with security. As a pure wired vault, this is the smartest $59 in the lineup.