Craig CMP741e Tablet ICS 4.0.3 Review, Has Allwinner A10 CPU

Oh I have a million ways to boot to recovery from within android. Just getting fed up with not being able to do it with the tablet off. The way I see it if I can't boot to android I'm screwed. My craig 738b had a button combo to flash with rkupgrade. Couldn't brick the thing no matter what. I do eagerly await what you come up with, please keep bluetooth dongle support in it. That's my whole reason for wanting to be able to mess with this thing.
 
Oh I have a million ways to boot to recovery from within android. Just getting fed up with not being able to do it with the tablet off. The way I see it if I can't boot to android I'm screwed. My craig 738b had a button combo to flash with rkupgrade. Couldn't brick the thing no matter what. I do eagerly await what you come up with, please keep bluetooth dongle support in it. That's my whole reason for wanting to be able to mess with this thing.

Just giving everyone a heads up, ive been working a ton of odd shifts but have been plugging in some time creating both Cyanogenmod 9 and simultaneously testing a Cyanogenmod 10 port for the CMP741E. Things are a lil glitchy at the moment but all should fare well before the end of the week.

I will release a TWRP 2.2 based recovery for the CMP741E first with correct partition settings. I will be creating a new post for these projects. Again this tablet is still at its infancy, and many havent worked with some of the drivers / modules used in this device, so please be patient!
 
I have had success rooting this device and installing the Play Store using RootThat-ICS. You should ROOT theCMP741e first, you may find that when you first plug the device to your windows PC, It wont detect the needed ADB drivers automatically, you can use the driver package Drivers_AllwinnerA10_32and64.zip to resolve this issue. After using RootThat-ICS the device will reboot and once detected by your PC again, install the play store from the RootThat-ICS menu.

Just an FYI--I'm a middle-of-the-road hacker-type who isn't an expert, but I have some experience using other folks' tools/tutorials to put Android on an old 3G iPhone, onto a few different laptops and, while Android-free, I did a lot of monkeying around with various types of Linux on my OLPC XO-1 laptop. So I'm not an idiot, but I'm not Einstein either. Don't know why I feel all that is important, but whatever. Anyway, I love cheap crap gadgets and when I saw the CMP741d get an unboxing photoset in an old XO-1 acquaintance's Flickrstream I knew I had to learn more. For any fellow NYers, I picked up my CMP741e (though it says CMP741x on the back of it) at the Rite-Aid on St. Nicholas Ave and 186th last night around 8:30pm. They had a stack of them--maybe like 15 or 20, all on sale for $100 down from $130, the cashier told me. They also had the same amount of the laptops. So, if you want 'em, go get 'em!

My experience so far has been really positive. The only disappointments have been the camera (.3 mp!) and the battery (about 5-6 hours with regular use and with wifi on)--neither are very surprising. These are usually the things that get skimped on with a crap gadget. Oh and I was expecting to find a full-size USB port on it that is not there. However, the mini USB port for powering the device will allow you to mount a hard drive or thumb drive--this made me ecstatic--not sure why.

That said, I was able to watch videos, surf the web, watch flash videos, install almost all of my favorite apps, Netflix and Plex (on the local network only--connecting through MyPlex via another network didn't work at all) both work great. At this point, I'm pretty happy with the purchase. I wanted an extra screen for watching stuff on (the speaker is crappy, but I'm not picky for the price!)

So, while it has already been worth the money, imo, I just can't leave well enough alone, so I installed a few different browsers, book readers, Pocket, a bunch of other stuff, set up my email, but kept running into the fact that the Play Store isn't installed. I was able to get around this thanks to iapktop.com but it just isn't the same as having the Play Store recognize your device and auto-download stuff to it.

So, I ran Root Check Basic-35.apk which I had laying around from messing with my Dell Streak 5 and it claimed I had root already. I installed Titanium Backup and it seemed to think I had root, too. Oh and I also haven't noticed any sluggishness, performance-wise, out of the box. I think I got lucky. Anyway, I installed the Play Store apk and while it always crashes, it always seems to come soooo close to running. I tried a few different mods of it from iapktop and none worked. Will try some more once my 24 hour limit on Rapidgator resets.

Anyway, so that's my tale, for now. Basically, I love my Craig! ;) Android 4 is really something, especially after only getting my Streak 5 to run 2.3.3 :/ It's like going from the Millenium Falcon to the Starship Enterprise. The Falcon is great for lots of reasons, but Android 4 just seems more elegant. So, at this point, I'm just trying to get the Play Store on there and I'll be all set.

Thanks so much for this thread!! It was instrumental in me deciding to buy one of these. It's definitely no iPad, but for $100 it's a great sidekick to one. :)
 
anyway i can get you to help me out by posting a link or 2 for root that ics and tutorial on it, sorry newbie here this is my first android device and rooting seems to be the only way to turn this particular tablet into a useful tool, being that i dont have access to google play store and what not, any and all help would be appreciated thanks for reading. also any tools or programs that you would recommend having on my pc would be great as well again thanks to all who have posted on this its been very informative
 
I have the 741d and would also like to get Google apps installed. My problem is that on both a win 7 and Ubuntu computer adb fails to find a device id number. Rootthis on the Linux machine actually comes up with the same blank line where the id number should be but won't continue with no number. Anybody know hoe to fix this. Or what the port number would be to use the rootthis wireless option the IP address is easy to find I just don't know how to find what port number is. Thanks for any help. Or is there a way to use the root files that come with root this manually by introducing them from SD card?
 
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I am the owner or the CRAIG CMP741e tablet and I can't complain about it, it works very nicely! But I have a question, can any one help me know how to root it, give me some instructions, and where can I find the programs please? I will be very grateful, because some programs don't run without the Play Store installed. Can anyone PLEASE help me?
 
I picked up (3) of CMP741e from CVS for about $20 each with my coupons and stuff. The only thing is that it does not play Netflix and I don't know how to root it. Other than that, I love it. I like the Aldiko app for ebook too, and I downloaded some of my favorite books. I am not really into playing games :) even though I did download some free games from the Amazon AppStore and it runs smoothly. The sound quality is good for me. USB plug-and-play is easy. The keyboard/cover turns the tablet into a mini laptop.
 
Wow, how in the world did you get 3 of them for $20 each with coupons? That is great! I am a couponer, also, but I have never gotten that great of a deal. Did you use extra bucks or is there some other coupon out there? I am a struggling mother who would love to buy this for my boys. Thank you!
i am also wondering if this is good to play games with. My son currently has an iPod and plays games like crazy. Is this something he could do that with or would it be way to slow? He is asking for a galaxy 2 but they are very pricey. I know nothing about stuff like this. Any information anyone has would be very appreciated. Thank you!!
 
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Please help. I got two of these. The one my husband has works great! Mine I have returned it 3 times because they dont connect to the internet at my house! What am I doing wrong? How come his connects and mine doesnt?
 
Can you please tell me how to root the Craig CMP741e tablet? I'm sorry if I'm insistent, but I want to know (and to be able to install the Play Store, etc., etc.)
 
Can you please tell me how to root the Craig CMP741e tablet? I'm sorry if I'm insistent, but I want to know (and to be able to install the Play Store, etc., etc.)
I can't guarantee that this will work but this is what worked for me. DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU BRICK / RUIN YOUR TABLET IN ANY WAY.[FONT=arial, sans-serif]
Software Required
[/FONT]
PDAnet - How to Install ADB Driver via PDAnet software | www.topnotchtablets.com
SuperOneClick - [APP]SuperOneClick v2.3.3 - Motorola Exploit Added! - xda-developers
RootThat-ICS - One Click ADB Root and Gapps - SlateDroid.com

1. I tried several methods to get the drivers installed to recognize my tablet and I think the easiest is to install PDAnet to get your PC to recognize the tablet.
2. Root the tablet with SuperOneClick
3. Install GApps using RootThat-ICS

It should be possible to root the tablet with RootThat but it didn't work for me so I had to use both SuperOneClick And RootThat. Hope this helps.
 
Last year I bought the older model of the Craig NETBOOK (Clp 281) but it lost Wifi last week so, since CVS was running a Black Friday sale on this tablet for $79, I thought I'd try one. I bought it on Black Friday and returned it on Sunday.

Pros:
1) I love the speech to text feature. It has a built in mic (no aux mic jack though) so you speak and it responds. Not badly either. I had to train Dragon software for hours to get this kind of response.
2) Capacitive screen is responsive, even with the plastic still on.
3) Had a problem connecting to my network through my router. Craig products are notorious for this. (I've had 2 older model tablets and netbooks in the past that had to be returned because of no wifi connectivity.) I have my SSID hidden so what I did was go to my router page and enabled SSID broadcast and then the tablet connected. Then I disabled it again and then the Tablet connected on it's own.
4) Has volume up and down buttons on the top of the unit. Dedicated volume control as I've heard them called. I like that.


Problems:
SPEED
I have to say, I expected more from the 1.3 Ghz processor and 1GB ram specs but it was a bit sluggish. I changed the aspec ratio of a movie I was watching and it took about 10 seconds for it to register. A few months ago I bought the newer model of the Craig Netbook (the clp 281A) Only had it for a few days because it was defective. But that netbook also ran Android 4.0 and had the same specks as this Tablet but ran much faster.

CAMERA
The worst! Ok, it's just .3 megapixels but it was off center so you showed up to the far left of the screen. Terrible in indoor light which is what I got it for. To SKYPE. The image of my face was not only distorted, but there was a silverish shadow on the face.

SOUND
Speaker is mono and VERY low. The sound was as bad as my old CLP281 netbook which, although you could barely hear the sound through the speakers, at least there were 2 and it was stereo. The newer model Craig Netbook (Clp281a) that I mentioned before had better speakers than my older model Craig netbook and they were stereo too so why did they make the newer tablet mono and with such low volume?

BATTERY
Forget what the manual says. After a full charge, I couldn't finish a 2 hour movie before it needed recharging. And, shortly after I got it, I disabled many apps from running and I keep the screen brightness at about 25%.

USB CHARGING
And, one of the WORST FEATURES FOR ME was the charging port. There's only one mini port on the device and it uses the same port to charge the device as you use to plug in a USB drive. They supply a wire so you can convert the mini usb port on the device to a female USB port so you can plug in a USB device of some kind (mouse, keyboard, USB flash drive). So, if you're watching a movie on a USB flash drive plugged into the wire but you run out of battery power, you have to unplug the USB drive and now charge the Tablet through the same port before you can plug in the USB drive and finish the movie. I think that was the deal breaker for me since I watch a lot of movies using an external USB drive.
 
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Just giving everyone a heads up, ive been working a ton of odd shifts but have been plugging in some time creating both Cyanogenmod 9 and simultaneously testing a Cyanogenmod 10 port for the CMP741E. Things are a lil glitchy at the moment but all should fare well before the end of the week.

I will release a TWRP 2.2 based recovery for the CMP741E first with correct partition settings. I will be creating a new post for these projects. Again this tablet is still at its infancy, and many havent worked with some of the drivers / modules used in this device, so please be patient!
Hey Omnimax I picked up my CMP741e last week and immediately got to work on it. I rooted it, installed the android market, and have been messing around with the speed settings. Some annoying things that I noticed was a pop from the speakers every few seconds and also when I connect a USB keyboard the screen will turn on every few seconds. I also had the system lock after I installed the Volume+ 2.0 beta and had to uninstall it quickly after boot-up to prevent the tablet from locking up after every boot cycle. After messing with the clock speeds I had a complete reset which wiped all of my settings/apps last night, but the tablet was still rooted and since I was able to perform nandroid backup earlier in the evening I just rebooted into recovery using terminal emulator and reflashed the backup ROM. I have yet to figure out how to boot to CWM recovery from power-off, but Novotools app worked.
I would love to install a stable cyanogenmod ROM if you or anyone else has worked it out. Otherwise I think I might be returning this tablet before the store return policy expires. Can you let me know if you have figured it out? I have been searching the web like crazy and have found no real conclusive answer.

Thanks for all of your hard work!
Jesse in ATL
 
I got my cmp741e tablet rooted, and it's working well.

I wanted to add some details to help others as I monkeying around trying to get this working for close to 3 hours.

1) Install the Drivers_AllwinnerA10_32and64.zip to your computer. It's easy to setup and you can then plug in and detect the device.
2) Don't forget to allow the USB connection from the settings on the device.
3) Install RootThat-ICS.
4) First step is to run RootThat-ICS and choose connect wireless.

RootThat-v1.0.0.png

This allowed me to detect the device from the program.
5) Clicked on Root device, and it brought up another prompt. Select the device from the dialog box, and click the button to continue.
6) Repeat step 5 for the Install Gapps option.
7) Use the RootThat app to reboot the device. ( I actually performed this first on accident, but it did verify the driver/device/app were communicating correctly.

That's it! The menus on the Root app were a little confusing. I wasn't sure the driver was working or not.

Hope this adds some clarity to the rooting process!

Thanks!

Kyle
 
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