It seems like the benefits are having the device lock/wipe itself after a set amount of attempts in case of a brute force attack and not having to run software to decrypt the drive on the device you plug it into.
I included a picture of the IronKey Keypad 200 but that's just because it's the first result that came up when I was looking for an example. There seem to be a few other manufacturers and models out there and they probably have different features.
I am curious what do you think of them? Do you think they are useful? Do you find it more a novelty?
It was an ExplainingComputers video titled Very Useful Small Computing Things that made me think of them.
Its available on linux mac and windows so id say it's pretty portable. You could even keep unencrypted installers on the same thumb drive in case internet access is an issue.
Available or built in? Because there are a lot of jobs and use cases where you need to transfer to systems you don't have full control over.
At that point you should probably use a cloud based solution anyway. Any decently secured system wouldn't let you plug in a random usb drive anyway.
I had assumed the use case was more for travel not for trying to access sensitive data on systems that you have limited access.