mp3 player dilemma!

hi guys been a member on mb a few months now and wanna say i really appreciate all help and tech advice iv gotten as its quite hard to find in Ireland sometimes, ok here goes i had a sony nw hd-5 and loved it but the software drove me crazy ,as does i tunes,so im just wondering has anyone got any experience/advice with an alternative option , i was considering a creative zen vision m but i was told i had to use the bundled software which slightly turns me off the product. anybody got any ideas on alt options or is the zen the way to go, thanks to all tha can be of any help,
oh yeah i have a cd collection of around 700 so when i eventualy get all the music on to the device i need it to be able to be backed up easily enough so that i could be able to use all the ripped cds with a different brand of mp3 player in a few years time when i decide 2upgrade again, thanks again