USB memory stick + 500 songs + voice recorder = $70

There’s no excuse for not owning a MP3 player today. Dirt-cheap products such as the 2GB MuVo from Creative is proof good things come in small (and cheap) packages.

I’m not suggesting to go out and drop $400 on an 80GB iPod or anything, but those low on cash can in fact pick up a decent MP3 player for about the cost of a pair of jeans.

For $69, the Creative Zen MuVo V100 looks like a Flash memory drive you snap into a PC’s USB port to transfer files – and you can use it as such – but it also has a headphone jack to listen to tunes and a LCD screen to see what’s playing.

The 2GB of internal memory can store roughly 500 songs (depending, of course, which compression technology you use and the bit-rate in which it’s encoded), plus the MuVo V100 also features a 5-band equalizer, support for lyrics display and various playback modes including shuffle and playlists.

Have a million dollar idea? Need to record a lecture or boardroom meeting? The built-in mic records up to 125 hours of audio, which you can later transfer to a PC for transcription.

Battery life is an impressive 18 hours on a single battery.

In the box you get earbuds, one AAA battery, a software CD and small booklet to get going. The MuVo V100 can be found at Future Shop, Best Buy and other big box electronics stores.