[SommaRaikkonen]

Here's a video that brings more perspective from My Deep Guide who reviews quite a whole lot of e-ink devices (timestamped for relevant part): https://youtu.be/K79MPnPq4_M?t=508

The thing that stood out for me is the way they push for a subscription as you purchase your device. The Marker Plus used to be $99, but they inflated the price to be $129 so that if you choose the Connect plan, it "slashes" the price back to $99 - how it originally cost before, according to the video.

[sundvor]

IANAL but have been through the material in compliance training: I'm reasonably sure that this would be illegal according to Australian consumer laws.

You can't advertise a price as having a discount if it was never sold at the higher price.

Since you can technically buy it at the higher price now without the sub, perhaps they could argue that they increased the price of the pen, and introduced the discount in the same stroke, and maybe ACCC would let it slide - but they certainly wouldn't be amused.

The pen pricing is even better in AUD, btw.. and that's WITH the "discounts". AUD170 for the eraser one.

[chrismorgan]

For reference: https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing-surcharging/display...

Mind you, those rules don’t stop such things from happening, even from purely Australian companies. I’ve tracked a Clevo-ODM laptop seller for years that’s perpetually at 25–40% discounts across all of their products (though they cycle through some of the specific components that are discounted), and I’ve been tracking one manufacturer’s only-sold-by-them 12V/100Ah LiFePO₄ battery for 15 months when they’ve had a $1,299 RRP marked down to $489–$469, with the alleged RRP recently reduced to $899. I’ve never complained to these companies or to the ACCC, but from other vaguely similar things that I have reported a couple of times I don’t expect much to happen.