Indeed. I recently looked for an MP3 player for trail running. My sister has an iPod nano that I liked for having tried it a few times, but when I saw the price it was a no go, especially when I saw that I can get the same functionality for 1/3 of the price.
I got an Sandisk Clip Sport Plus: 16Gb, Bluetooth, 3.5 Jack, FM tuner, micro-USB, ~20h battery, FLAC support, water-resistant.
Don't expect the same product quality as the nano though (plastic case, no touchscreen, smaller screen, etc…) but at least for sport you don't need this anyway.
I have a simpler model; no bluetooth or color screen, but it has a microSD card slot. 4GB base memory, with a 16GB card in it. I think it was about $20 when I bought it years ago, and it's still going.