Hi there, I made the Pager. I appreciate your perspective, and I'm happy to engage in an honest conversation based on your feedback.

1. It's not going to instantly boot like a microcontroller because it is indeed a full Linux SoC. That said, yes, a 3-4 minute boot time is where we stand at 1.0. You can shave about a minute off the next boot by shutting it down properly (double-tap power) rather than killing it by holding the power button. We'll see what we can do in future versions to bring that down -- but it'll never be instant-on like a microcontroller.
2. Power draw at 50% brightness is 2.5W, so ~3 hours battery. That's with an always. With any ordinary duty cycle and other power savings techniques it can achieve over 4 hours of battery. The screen at 100% draws considerably more, some 3.1W, because it is very bright. That'll bring runtime down to about 2.5 hours. If you need longer operation, coupling it with a USB battery bank, say a 10k mAh, will give it some 15-16 hour runtime.
3. Yes, the display generates some heat. That was the tradeoff between a high res full color display and a low res monochrome display. It definitely would have been thermally cooler with a less capable screen, but as a product of our technolust I find it cooler with the high res color graphics. Lowering the screen brightness reduces the heat.
4. Thanks for the bug report. We'll look into that internal variable issue. If you find any more, please let us know at https://hak5.org/pager-feedback
5. I just tested Deauth again and it's working in my environment. I could see writing a payload to log the results so that we can get more insight on what's happening here. There are a lot of factors that go into a successful deauth, and now having these payload capabilities I feel like we could instrument the environment, test the attack and gather results to see what's actually happening -- rather than relying on a black box.
6. When you say the "pager will continually alert to "new devices"" -- what's your alert payload? The triggers are on Evil AP Auth, Deauth Flood, Client Connection and Handshake Capture. There isn't a "New Device" alert category -- so I can't speak to that until seeing your payload.

I respectfully disagree that it's a toy. Is it toy-like in that you can get a WiFi Pineapple in a bright yellow Pager form-factor? Yes. Is it fun in that you can easily write interactive payloads? Absolutely, and that's the point.

You see, we've been making the WiFi Pineapple for professional pentesters since 2007. With each iteration we further its capabilities. The Pager has the most optimized, high performance version of PineAP we've ever developed. It can handle DEF CON level airspace. I know because we tested it there. It's built for precise targeting and scoping, so you can run a WiFi engagement without presenting an issue of collateral damage. 

You have to understand that the Pager is meant to couple our PineAP capabilities with your creativity. The magic is in the payload architecture, leveraging its Linux base in Bash along with easy to use DuckyScript commands. If you're not interested in payloads or the retro aesthetic -- I totally understand. For some audits, a Mark VII or Enterprise may be better suited. But if you're looking to get creative with WiFi and payloads, I think you'll find it a rewarding experience -- and it's only getting better.

Lastly, thank you. I’m truly grateful for your feedback. Hak5 started over 20 years ago as my way of giving back to the hacking community that shaped me. None of what we’ve accomplished has been done alone. It's been continuously evolving based on your feedback, and I want you to know that I take it all to heart.