There are huge differences between a hardware wallet and an air gapped PC.
To be honest, using a hardware wallet is much cheaper, easier, secure and convenient than to use an air gapped PC.
If you still want to go ahead with using an air gapped PC then you can go ahead with the process you mentioned.
Be sure to get the wallet from official source only and make sure it is open source.
Make sure that you are not connecting the device to internet or connecting any storage devices to the air gapped PC.

What you are saying?
You don't need internet connection for creating your electrum wallet at all. Your keys are generated through some mathematical calculations locally on your own device.
You can also sign your transaction offline without any need to internet connection.

If your want your wallet to be cold storage, your keys should never touch the internet.

Old smart phones can be infected with malware even before you turn it to an airgapped device, i will say OP should rather stick to the hardware if they are serious about holding their coins securely.


Updating the wallet doesn’t stops you from attacks or hacks it is just as same as the old wallet just that bugs might have been fixed but external attack are still very much same.


This is totally wrong, you don’t need to set up a 2FA if you don’t want it. You can simply create a new standard wallet like the other wallets do except that electrum seeds are custom seeds. You can add pass phrases like other wallets too and also use multi sig if you prefer it. The 2FA just an extra option if you want. It is not compulsory to use it if you don’t want it.

Also Electrum is available for all softwares except IOS (iPhone smart phones). That means on mobile device it is available for Androids only but available for all softwares on laptop or computer. There is nothing different with electrum and other wallets.


Yes I agree with you that the way you treat your wallet is as important as the choice of wallet it self in securing its funds. But no matter the level security applied once a wallet is an hot wallet. There is the risk of it getting compromised. You can’t be sure or trust it because you haven’t experience it before. Also it is not all Malwares that an AV can dictate so relying on them too is risky to me

Op yes Electrum wallet is good for a reasonable amount of big to be hodle but if you are holding big or huge amount of bitcoin whether Electrum wallet is good for offline or not or is better for your to use hardware wallet which is more saver than the Electrum wallet of offline. If you have it in your device and the day you connect your device to the net and you were about checking your wallet that day then it must connect to the internet and one thing I discovered from Electrum wallet is that if you didn't connect it to the internet, you won't see the current balance if you transfer new coins to it unless you connect it to the internet before the present balance would show.
So the best way is to buy hardware wallet and just transfer the coins to it and let them stay there until you want to use them.

We trust Electrum as a hardware wallet. If you can't afford to buy a hardware wallet, then you can use an Electrum wallet. But you need to secure your wallet seed safely. And the device you are using, the Electrum wallet, should not be compromised. The important thing is to secure your seed, and your device should be secured from the attack. Also, make sure you keep safe seeds in multiple places; in case one is lost, another will recover the wallet. But it is always best to get a hardware wallet. 

I guess that you are a little bit paranoid here.
Electrum is really secure. You can add additional words to the 12-word seed. You could create a multi-sig wallet on Electrum(multi-sig wallets are more secure than standard Electrum wallets), or you could simply add 2-factor authentication. Those 3 options can totally enhance the security of your Electrum wallet.
Are you really sure about "never connecting to the internet again"? You will have to connect to the internet, when you decide to sell your BTC. Do you plan to keep BTC forever in that wallet, without touching them ever again? This seems weird.

For you to have an amount of coins that you jealously securing against any malware attack through any internet connection then you should be capable of affording a hardware wallet without stress right? Because from what is established conventionally in the financial world is that people only create protection on something of great value to them.

Electrum wallet is one bitcoin wallet with a good security I can at any point in time recommend to bitcoin users, and if it's a small amount of coins then it's a great idea with what OP has proposed for those that can't yet afford a hardware wallet. The internet is not friendly with bitcoin wallets that at any slight mistake of a bug attack or malware you can go zero balance without knowing it is for this that air gap wallets are preferred safer far above any other linked to wireless communications.

Even an average grandpa and grandma can click and a button and reset smartphone to it's factory settings, everyone else can install open source alternative like GrapheneOS, LienageOS or DiverstOS.
When I said old smartphone I didn't mean that it should be full of installed crap apps.
Hardware wallet is still a better option.

Electrum, bluewallet or sparrowwallet...as long as you are using a wallet that is open source and a non-custodial wallet are all equally secure wallets. But I think comparing them and assuming they have the same level of security as hardware wallets is not entirely accurate because hardware wallets will at least always be offline and that's what m akes it more valuable. But saying that does not mean that software wallets like Electrum are not safe because it depends on how we preserve them, but they have disadvantages compared to hardware wallets .

But no matter what kind of wallet we use to store bitcoins, much of the safety will depend on us, not because we use a hardware wallet, our bitcoins will never be hacked or lost.

Yeah obviously Electrum is a good wallet, no doubt about that, but it requires one to keep the app on a device such as a smartphone or a computer to run and use the wallet to make transactions, and any app that is stored on a device can be compromised and attacked by exploiters using malware, viruses, and other stuff that they use to steal people's funds.
 
But still, one can use Electrum to store a reasonable amount of Bitcoin that one uses for regular transactions which is hassle-free because the interface is clear and user-friendly, and it is very easy to make transactions using Electrum. but for storing large amounts, one shouldn't prefer Electrum or any other software wallet even if they are open-source and non-custodial.