1. They are expensive, that is why people that store low amount of cryptocurrencies prefer to use online wallet. But storing coins worth more than 1000, hardware wallet is recommended.
2. They are not convenient to use like online wallets that you can easily access and trade.
3. A malware from hackers can erase the address code a donor is sending to while
sending high amount of bitcoin. The address will be replaced by the hacker's bitcoin address. This could happen to altcoin of high amount too depending on the malware.
4. The random number generator can be insecure and create a private key that can be known to hacker.
1. I disagree. It's either spending some money on HW wallet or risking losing all coins (which probably worth more than a HW wallet).
2. That depends on HW wallet and wallet (which used to connect with HW wallet) you use. Ledger HW wallet and Ledger Live is quite convenient, even though the feature is limited for power user.
3. Regular wallet also suffer from this problem, but you can verify the copied address and transaction detail to prevent sending your coin to hacker.
4. Also applies to regular wallet
1. I agree with you. But, people have $200 worth of bitcoin and altcoin will find it difficult to go for HW wallets. This is what I meant
2. People find mobile wallet more convenient, not that hardware wallet is not convenient especially for professionals, but, mobile wallet is more convenient like web wallet in comparism to hardware wallets.
3, 4. I talked about the disvantage not comparing it. So, far malware can change address to hackers address, then we should talk about it as a disadvantage. Also the RNG can be insecure truly. In. I did not compare but talk about the disadvantage so that wallet owners will be careful.
All your points are right. But, try and get me right too.
I just want to add that you can create your own de facto hardware wallet with a USB Flash Drive with these simple steps:
1. Install a persistent version of Linux on your flash drive. (Something like
this)
2. Get Electrum on it, either from another flash drive while it's booted (if you never want it to touch the internet) or simply from electrum.org.
3. Turn off networking permanently; it's only a cold wallet if it's completely offline.
4. Create your wallet offline with Electrum.
5.
Learn how to use your new cold wallet.
It's a lot more inconvenient to spend from, but that has its advantages. You also don't need to worry about it being compromised in transit, having manufacturer-specific vulnerabilities, etc. Do note that I'm not saying that this is necessarily better than commercial hardware wallets; it's just another option you can look at.
This is a lot helpful. But you said, it is inconvenient. It is also can not be safe like the recommended HW wallets.