Money clips can be made out of anything. Paper clips, rubber bands, you name it and a money clip is made of it.  Designer Scott Amron is trying to dupe people into buying either a $12 pre-made money clip or a $9 DIY kit to make your own. The design is simple: a dollar bill with one end taped with a magnet and the other end taped with a piece of metal.

It folds around your wad of bills as if it is just another dollar among them and it is! This simple and efficient design for a money clip makes me wonder if it would be more rewarding to forgo Amron’s offer of a DIY kit in favor of an attempt to make your own similar concept for a slimmer impact on your budget.

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I love how sites are calling this GSM phone the “Anti-iPhone” as the name couldn’t suit the HOP1800 better. Remember the disposable cellphone idea from years back? This is it. Ten bucks gets you a phone from Hop-on that works with over 40 carriers, including all the major players.

As you can see in the picture, there’s no display. You get four hours of talk time, 16 MIDI ringers and Braille markings on the keypad. Reasonably thin and ultimately cheap, the HOP1800 is the perfect phone for a weekend at the beach or Burning Man. Just don’t expect to be Twittering with it anytime soon.

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The OLPC movement is better known for its $100 laptops that sport Windows XP.  A new line of laptops, said to be released in 2010, is probably the cheapest touch screen laptop ever. For only $75,  this laptop comes with no keyboard, as opposed to the computer that cuts out the middle man. Better yet, it has a fold–out, dual touchscreen, designed to fend off the glare in the middle of a sunny day.

The designers felt that not producing the laptop with a keyboard would translate into less mechanical failure for the unit. As OLPC strives to rid the world of computer-phobia, it’s designs like these that could one day make everyone a computer-savvy nerd.

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In order to appeal to billions of smokers in China, a company has brought out this ultimate cigarette phone. Not only does it look like a pack of cigarettes (the exact size and the exact warning labels concerning health), it actually holds half a pack of REAL cigarettes on the back. All you need to do is to slide open the battery cover and you’re set to make new friends. The phone itself runs on dualband GSM, takes microSD cards, plays MP3, has a color screen and a VGA camera on the side. For $175 you will get a whole luxurious VIP kit with the phone, a pack of Chonghwa branded cigarettes as well as a lighter. More pics after the jump.

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Sub-$500 laptops aren’t the hardest things to find now, but how about sub-$500 laptops running Vista? That’s a deal that just calls for Walmar to be involved. The Everex Stepnote VA4101M is being sold at Walmart with some specs that don’t really call out for a new demanding OS. The 1.46GHz Celeron M processor, 512MB of RAM, and 60GB hard drive won’t have a problem with XP, but don’t expect to get Aero running perfectly with this setup. So while the target market clearly isn’t the highly tech-savvy, it will probably make a good product for a kid’s first computer or something of that sort. Calling it a Vista ready computer is just a strech. –Nik Gomez

The first sub $500 Windows Vista laptop [via Gadgetell]

If you haven’t already bought an iPod or any other MP3 player, you are pretty far behind the times, but don’t fret, all is not lost. Sansa has released its Express MP3 player that is designed specifically for those who don’t want to spend a large amount of money. It comes with 1GB of built-in flash storage, but if a gig isn’t quite enough for you, it also has a microSD slot so that you can expand to whatever you feel you need. It is scheduled to be released in the US and Europe March 2007 for $59.99. Even though it is probably one of the cheapest extra small form factor MP3 players on the market right now (it is about the size of a pack of gum), Sansa has been able to pack in the features. The Express plugs directly into your USB 2.0 port and is able to charge and transfer data straight through that. It also has a 1.1â€? bright OLED screen which is perfect for saving precious battery life (currently rated at around 16 hours). It has a built in digital FM tuner with recording ability, and it can recording your voice with a built-in microphone. As far as supported file formats go the Express supports MP3, WMA, protected WMA, WAV, and Audible files. It is hard to believe that Sansa is making any money from this, but because of the constanly dropping prices in manufacturing goods, we should be able to see many more MP3 players at this price with this level of quality. — Nik Gomez

Sansa Express MP3 player [via Gadgetell]

If you were to look at the price of these small speakers, you would think that they were being sold at Target during their after-Christmas sale. Fortunately, the price of $12 will stay for as long as you wish, or at least until Dunherm stops making them. These DH-S600 speakers are very simple, sleek and get the job done. Each speaker has a 1.7 inch drive unit that, while won’t get as loud as your brand new Bose speakers, will be very nice for your new iPod you got for Christmas. These speakers are enclosed in a smooth white or black case, and as an added bonus, there is a 3.5 stereo jack on the side. Why you need a headphone jack on speakers is unknown, but it probably costs Dunherm next to nothing to add them on. So whether you are on the road, seated by your computer, or out in the middle of the desert… the DH-S600 speakers will play your music while not breaking, or even impacting your wallet.

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Maybe it isn’t a piece of amazing design work, but it is certainly a great deal. The ZVUE 250 personal media player is priced at $99.95. That’s under a hundred dollars! If you were to just read the features you’d think that it would be at least $200. It has a 2.5-inch active matrix backlit screen; it plays WMA, WMV, MP3, OGG, MP2, AVI, Xvid, MPEG4, ASF, JPG, and BMP file formats; and it measures 4.33â€?x2.91â€?x .8â€?.That’s right, it supports five different video formats that playback at up to 30 fps. It is compatible with Windows Media Player 10 and works with DRMed WMAs and WMVs. The main drawbacks of this product are that it doesn’t come with any internal storage, everything is done via its SD card slot (it does come with a starter 128MB card). The battery life also suffers due to its budget design. The battery only lasts up to six hours on a single charge. If someone on your Christmas list wants an MP3 player and you don’t feel like dishing out for an iPod, this is definitely your PMP on a budget.

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