MP3 player advice bleg.

I have grown disenchanted with my iPod. I merely want to buy CDs, rip them to MP3s, then transfer them to my MP3 player for my own convenience; yet, Apple seems determined to not only make that difficult (mind you, I have receipts for everything).  No, it wants to make that obscurely difficult, so that I cannot figure out what is going wrong.

So I want a viable alternative. It doesn’t need to have any extras: I just want something that will play back my music, with a display that I can read.  Oh, and not insanely expensive, either (no more than $200). Suggestions?