One of the most heavily competitive accessory markets at the moment has to be for the portable music player, which has recently had the quality bar raised by the arrival of Apple's iPod.

But for those without lots of cash to spare, who'd like to combine a modest music collection with a USB Flash drive in an almost invisible manner, Creative's MuVo series fits the bill admirably.

The MuVo TX model has improved on the original MuVo and its NX successor in a number of key ways. The most important is the leap from USB 1.1 to USB 2.0, which means that transfer time is improved by up to 40-fold, using WMA files recorded at 64Kbps and MP3s at 128Kbps.

The MuVo TX has been released in three formats, with 128MB, 256MB and 512MB of drive space. It requires no additional software to start working with most operating systems. Just plug it in and your PC recognises it. Files can then be simply dragged and dropped using Windows Explorer. The USB part is then unplugged and snapped into the battery module to start playing. If you're left-handed, you can even rotate the LCD easily for left hand operation.

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Power is supplied by AAA batteries, removing the need for bulky rechargers. Each battery gives between 10 and 14 hours of continuous play. The backlit LCD display, which was added with the introduction of the NX model, is still there and despite the slim size of the unit (3.5 x 7.4 x 1.5cm), it's easy to read.

Operations are carried out through a scroll stick which will allow you to skip folders, read full track information from ID3 tags, shuffle, repeat, delete, etc. There's also a separate EQ with predetermined settings for Rock, Pop, Jazz, Classical, Normal and Custom (so you can tweak it yourself to suit your earphones - a set of which is supplied).

Sound quality is uniformly impressive, with a 90dB signal-to-noise ratio and skip-free audio. It's clearly marketed as much for exercise fans as casual listeners because it comes with a Velcro armband and, weighing a mere 43g, is not going to slow you down on the jogging route. In terms of capacity, it can hold the equivalent of between 88 and 352 floppies' worth of material.

If all that wasn't enough, there's a built-in microphone that will allow you to use the MuVo TX as a Dictaphone to store anything from 8 hours (in the smallest capacity model) to 32 hours (in the 512MB model) of speech.

Although you don't need any PC software to run the MuVo TX, Creative has thrown in its MediaSource Player which will enable you to convert your CDs into MP3 and WMA format quite seamlessly. In fact, like most aspects of this hardware, everything is designed to get you copying and listening to your music as quickly and pleasurably as possible.

If you're looking for a digital audio player that won't cost you a month's salary, is light and versatile and doubles as both useful hard drive storage and a Dictaphone, you'd be hard pressed to better this little gem.