Recommended Tips
Always do the initial setup phase of the hardware wallet offline. In other words, do not plug the device into a computer when setting it up. Plug it directly into a plug (i.e. a plug in the wall). This can prevent potential (but unlikely) setup vulnerabilities during the seedphrase and key generation step.
Always buy hardware wallets directly from the manufacturer.
Never use a hardware wallet that was used, given to you, opened or damaged in any way.
Always appropriately and with the utmost caution backup your seed phrases during the initial setup phase. Please see "Storing Seeds and Passphrases".
For advanced users: try setting up your hardware wallet with multiple pins and Bip39 passphrases. This allows you to have multiple accounts on a single device and enables plausible deniability. We use these advanced settings for our harder recommended wallet setups, later on in the book.
Do your research on the manufacturer and devices you are buying (make sure you know what you are getting and where you should/can go if you have problems).
You can use MyEtherWallet to view and transfer cryptocurrency that are stored on hardware wallets, thereby taking advantage of MyEtherWallet's easy-to-use UI while keeping the security and safety of a hardware wallet. Here are some step-by-step instructions explaining how to use a Ledger Nano S with MyEtherWallet.