is the only reason to use something other than bitcoin core to create a wallet to set up multi-sig?
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im trying to understand better why someone would want to use something other than btc core for cold storage wallet set up and have to work with two different programs instead of one?
No, it's not a MultiSig wallet.
It's a standard single-sig, the online machine doesn't contain private keys, only the offline machine.
The goal is to isolate the private keys from online environment even when spending the funds.
In your case, you can just delete the offline laptop's wallet later since you won't be spending the funds for long
and use only the online watch-only wallet to receive funds and monitor the balance.
When you need to spend it, restore the offline wallet on the offline laptop to sign the transaction that you'll create using the online laptop.
im looking at a seedsigner and they recommend sparrow or specter desktop wallet. is it just "easier" to create a watch-only wallet with those?
I can't tell, used neither of those wallets.