It's certainly not a replacement for a laptop.  But I needed a way to download photos and didn't want to drag my expensive laptop overseas.  This little gadget downloads to a portable hard drive almost as fast as the laptop.  Unfortunately, the chromebook can't display big RAW files, so I can't check on my images while we're there.  Still, a very cheap solution to backing up files.  It has 2 USB and one USC port, enough to handle the card reader, backup drive, and a mouse.