$400 for 40GB is a bit pricy. Comparable devices can be had for much less. But the idea behind the device is quite sound. I have one of the original ones of these called a “Digital Wallet”. It has a 6GB (I have since upgraded to 20GB version).
These things were very handy back when CF cards cost $300 for a 128MB. You bought one of these and could unload your card multiple times onto one of these during your trip. Now with CF cards getting so cheap these are a bit harder to justify for most people. I can shoot like mad for a whole day on the cards I own and when I get back to the hotel then I can back up the cards to my TR3A and CD but 4-5 years ago these things were a great idea.
Advantages over a laptop?
1) Smaller, can be taken with you during the day
2) Start up of a few seconds vs laptop boot times
3) Generally better battery life than most laptops
4) Way less expensive. Would you rather lose a device that costs a couple hundred or a device that costs a couple thousand (and has all your personal files on it)?
All that said my 20GB device is now sitting in a drawer. I will probably pull the 20GB drive out and put it in an enclosure so I can use it as an external drive for my TR3A. But there are still people who can use these.
