Craig CMP741e Tablet ICS 4.0.3 Review, Has Allwinner A10 CPU

[8125Omnimax]

I have been quite skeptical about these pharmacy store sold tablets, I have been reading nightmares about sluggish speeds, UI choppiness, AC adapters just not working, etc. Upon reading a Rite Aid circular in the NYC area I discovered that Rite Aid is selling both the Craig CMP741e and the Netbook version for $99. I decided to give it a shot since reading the specs of the device on the back of the packaging.

7 Inch Digital Capacitance Touch Screen ( 800 x 480, 16:9 )
Processing Speed 1.3 Ghz ( Sun4i, Allwinner A10 ) Stock is clocked at 1Ghz /w Fantasy governor, you can overclock to 1.15Ghz max out the box
Android 4.0.3, Adobe flash 11.1 pre installed
Front Facing Camera (0.3 Megapixel)
1GB DDR3 Ram
802.11 b/g/n wireless connectivity
Multi Point Touch Screen
3D Gaming Accelerator ( Mali 400 )
USB OTG connectivity ( You can use your keyboard, mouse or any compatible peripheral with the supplied dongle connected to the device )
Rechargeable Battery ( 6 Hours continuous use )
Built in speaker and Microphone
Micro SD Card slot ( Support up to 32GB )
Stereo Headphone Jack

Included in the packaging is the power adapter, Mini USB to USB Type A Male cable, Mini USB to USB Type A Female (OTG) cable

The device has a glossy finish, build construction is quite adequate. you'll definitely be carrying around a microfiber cloth with this one. The device has a Menu button similar to that of the IPAD on the front bezel, volume + & - buttons are on the side of the bezel along with the power button. The Craig CMP741e tablet feels about 1 1.5 / to 2 Lbs. You definitely want to keep this in a folio case or neoprene case.

Upon turning the power button on, youre greeted with a Android boot splash along with the AOSP loading screen. Boot up time was very quick. There was no Play Store installed but there was a link for the Amazon App Store to download its APK from amazon.com. Comes with Flash 11 pre installed, Facebook, Twitter, and an HD Player App which seems inferior to whats available at the moment.

The Capacitance Touch Screen works well, but gets smudged very easily. Ive noticed that the response time needs to be tweaked on the device. You do notice color slight gradience when displaying pictures, but nothing too distracting for the eye

The front facing camera works but you may need to open the device to re-position it. the camera which is to the right hand side of the bezel menu button is panned a little too far to the left when viewing in horizontal mode. The picture quality is as it good as it gets for a 0.3 sensor, but works in video call apps like tango.

The device also has built in a 3-Axis Accelleromiter which works pretty well for apps and games that need it.

I have had success rooting this device and installing the Play Store using RootThat-ICS. You should ROOT the CMP741e 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.

After I got the Play Store up, I was dismayed to see that many of the apps I used a lot were not compatible with the device only because it was identified as a tablet. CNN, Facebook, NY Daily News, Veetle etc. I got around this by copying these apps to the SD card and installing them using the file manager included with the tablet. The apps still ran, some of them even had correct tablet aspect ratios, like Veetle for instance which runs great on the device, but doesnt show up in the market.

Netflix runs perfect on the device, The new Youtube app runs great as well.

Angry Birds runs smooth, Even Shadowgun Ran! This is just on stock CPU Speed!.

The box is cake and semi-lies when they say "1.3Ghz" processor. The CPU governor is set to "fantasy", lowest CPU speed scaled to 60Mhz, Highest set to 1Ghz. Now out the box this device is tamed as a E-reader focused device. However its built with a nice level of hardware that makes it one viable tablet.

Through System Tuner Pro I was able to set the clock governor to "ondemand", and though trial and error found that the best scale range was to keep the cpu at lowest 384MHz to 528MHz, and at highest 1.15GHz, this drastically reduces the lagginess. Keeping it as low as 60Mhz is too drastic of a drop, and the UI is dependent off the CPU only, so when you power up the device youll get choppiness in the beginning. Theoretically the CPU, which is a Sun4i "Allwinner A10" chip can reach speeds up to 1.5Ghz, this device shows speeds leading up to 1.4Ghz, but as soon as you try to over clock it past 1.15, the system will reboot. You might want to try changing the voltage tables around to supply the CPU more juice.

There are scripts out there that are supposed to work on all Allwinner A10 devices to improve performance, but at the moment I dont want to tinker too far only because the Craig Electronics website has no software downloads for the CMP741e device, nor do they have a firmware refresh tool.

I have seen many devices that carry the same specs as the Craig CMP741e board, this leads me to believe that this is a re-branding of course, and Craig Electronics released a CMP741 model without a bezel button and a front facing camera. On that product description page they include an update.img file to upgrade the device to AOSP 4.0.3, but is not compatible with this particular model.

Overall I must say that this tablet is in fact a decent purchase. You get what you pay for and to be honest if youre using a tablet to do casual browsing and play a few games here and there, this might be it. For $99 /w rite aid wellness + card, its quite a steal, and the sale ends tomorrow 7/28/2012.

Benchmark :

Using Quadrant standard, Performance governor, OC'd to 1.15Ghz, build prop tweaks & changing the sd card cache to 2048 through System Tuner Pro, The overall score comes out to 1919. Not as fast as a Galaxy Tab, but prety good coming from an Allwinner A10 device.

 

[chrislj74]

The other tablet you refer to is the CMP741d which I have. Craig does have a download link provided for it, ICS 4.03. It runs off the RK2918 chipset and is clock locked at 1.13Ghz max. Mine is also rooted and has google apps installed. But unlike your's mine does not like the Netflix app at all.

 

[8125Omnimax]

The other tablet you refer to is the CMP741d which I have. Craig does have a download link provided for it, ICS 4.03. It runs off the RK2918 chipset and is clock locked at 1.13Ghz max. Mine is also rooted and has google apps installed. But unlike your's mine does not like the Netflix app at all.

Checking between the specs, it looks as if Craig redone the model with a different CPU / WIFI configuration.

while doing a dmesg through terminal i found that it contained the Realtek RTL8192C 802.11B/G/N 300M Wireless NIC , does yours have the same?. I know rockchip cpu's have rockchip branded wifi modules ( which could be the underlying cause of the model change )

 

[8125Omnimax]

The other tablet you refer to is the CMP741d which I have. Craig does have a download link provided for it, ICS 4.03. It runs off the RK2918 chipset and is clock locked at 1.13Ghz max. Mine is also rooted and has google apps installed. But unlike your's mine does not like the Netflix app at all.

the CMP741d is a revision, i was referring to this one :

Craig Electronics Inc.

They all seem to contain something different within their internals, wondering if the model i linked in this post has similar specs to yours, all have the so called 1.3Ghz CPU, 7" screen and 800x400 resolution screen

 

[chrislj74]

Yeah but that one you just linked to is Android 2.3, not ICS and has half the ram. Mine actually is clock locked at 1008Mhz. I thought it was 1.13 but I was off a bit. I also believe this tablet I have (CMP741d) does have a Realtek wifi chip but I do not remember the number. I actually had it apart looking for anyway to see if bluetooth would be possible but I found no hardware support so that was a no go.

 

[Growlor]

I got one earlier this week and have been having fun with it so far. Found out if your dog yanks the device off the end-table by the charging cable (the charging cable is a standard mini-USB (not micro like most new devices) that it will bend the cable connector and slightly pop-off the back. I had a spare mini-USB cable from my GPS and was able to snap the back in place with no permanent damage!
I had a devil of a time trying to get the Google Play app store to run until I ran into this post. I tried tons of sideloads of the apk files and all of them ended with the app store crashing repeatedly. After reading the OP above, I tried the RootThat-ICS app you recommended and it worked perfectly. Thanks so much for that tip!
Some tips to help others with this exact model:
-> I followed the instructions in the pdf at the bottom of this post to get the adb driver for Windows 7 up and running (forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=26654073&postcount=4 - the PDF shows a PC running Dutch as the language, but most ppl should be able to follow it by sight like I did), and the changes I had were to add the correct Andoid SDK path for my PC and modify the USB ID for our device to look like this in the inf file found here (c:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\extras\google\usb_driver\android_winusb.inf) to add these lines (these should go in the same place he listed in the pdf, but since the cmp741e is a different tablet, I had to tweak the values a bit to match what I believe is a different USB ID.)
;Android ADB Interface
%SingleAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_0003&MI_01
%CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_0003&REV_0230&MI_01
;
-> If you run RootThat-ICS in Windows 7, make sure to extract the folder and then when you run the batch file, do that with a right-click and "Run as Administrator" or else the root/Google Play install will hang.

Thanks for all the good info - hope this helps.

PS - My wife works at Rite Aid (just a lowly pharmacy tech) where I bought this. I don't think that's a big deal for my post but wanted to be honest about that.

 

[bananas]

Picked one of these up at Rite Aid today and bleh, it's horrible. Wasn't expecting a whole lot but with a gig of RAM I figured it would run relatively smoothly. The screen is not very responsive and after downloading Angry Birds and Slacker from the Amazon App Store, AB is choppy and jerky and Slacker won't run. I sign into my account, choose a radio station and get a Connecting... Buffering.... even that repeats over and over again. I'm on my home wireless and no other devices have these issues. I've reinstalled Slacker a few times with the same result. Typing is frustrating as sometimes you have to tap the letter multiple times before it actually types out in the box.

I'll keep it as a knock around tablet but it was pretty disappointing. I haven't tried Netflix yet. That's the next test. I have no idea how to root this thing so until I find out how to do that I'm stuck with it as is.

Edited to add: the speaker is total crap. At the loudest volume you can barely hear it.

Edited again: Just tried Netflix. It opened up a TV show and the play line doesn't move at all. Surfing the web works but anything I attempt to stream doesn't work. Very odd. I have multiple tablets here (Thrive 10.1, iPad 1 and 2, Kindle Fire) and tried them all with no problems. Turned the wireless off on all of them and went back to this new one and had the same issue. Terrible.

 

[vdubbus77]

Picked up this this weekend and have to say for 99 bucks it's not so bad. To the previous poster, I don't think this tablet is anywhere near the level of the tablets you listed. You may have some high expectations comparing it to those. Rooted mine and installed Gapps with RootThat-ICS. Found a version of Clockworkmod that works on this tablet and was able to back up the tablet.....BUT........cannot find any keypress sequence to enter Recovery mode. The only way I was able to get to recovery was using NOVO7 tools to boot it or a batch file that will kick it to recovery AFTER it enables ADB debugging. So basically you need a running system to recover. Not really a safe enough solution for me to start flashing roms yet. Any Ideas?

 

[ThatsMrsJ]

Hi all I Just picked up 2 of these today I work at cvs so with my discount and "Coupons" these came up to like 25.00 a piece I know people use these for so many cool things I just wanted to play angry birds with my husband on these lol. I just found out that the same apks that work on my cellphone work on here so all I did was take the card out my phone and stick in the craig and install from there. I'm not really a computer all knowing so that's the only thing i know so far I've been reading on here about rooting and all that but I'm lost on that if anyone thinks I need to do that then please left me know and if u don't then let me know that to I'm just an old lady that likes to read lol Ok Bye bye

 

[8125Omnimax]

Picked up this this weekend and have to say for 99 bucks it's not so bad. To the previous poster, I don't think this tablet is anywhere near the level of the tablets you listed. You may have some high expectations comparing it to those. Rooted mine and installed Gapps with RootThat-ICS. Found a version of Clockworkmod that works on this tablet and was able to back up the tablet.....BUT........cannot find any keypress sequence to enter Recovery mode. The only way I was able to get to recovery was using NOVO7 tools to boot it or a batch file that will kick it to recovery AFTER it enables ADB debugging. So basically you need a running system to recover. Not really a safe enough solution for me to start flashing roms yet. Any Ideas?

Which recovery are you using, the recovery im using requires you hold the volume + button down upon boot, bringing you to CWM without the need for a script.

 

[vdubbus77]

Which recovery are you using, the recovery im using requires you hold the volume + button down upon boot, bringing you to CWM without the need for a script.

I've tried every combo of keys and it won't work. I'm guessing yours does? Could you point me to the version of CWM you are using? Also exactly how you are doing the keypress.

 

[8125Omnimax]

I've tried every combo of keys and it won't work. I'm guessing yours does? Could you point me to the version of CWM you are using? Also exactly how you are doing the keypress.

http://www.androidtablets.net/forum...-recovery-6-0-1-0-a10-ly-f1-treq-tablets.html


Everything works except what is specified. You can do a nandroid backup, restore, wipe cache, full wipe, and even flash zips. I tried to flash cyanogenmod but the touch screen didn't work natively. The tablet uses the zet6221.ko touchscreen driver, same as in the pico devices. Haven't found a compatibility zip that works for the cmp741e yet. I have made backups of the boot.img and bootloader.img from the appropriate partitions.

Doing a nandroid restore I had initially lost use of the touch screen and wifi, but pushing back the boot.img and bootloader.img in adb I got back both functions.

 

[8125Omnimax]

Picked one of these up at Rite Aid today and bleh, it's horrible. Wasn't expecting a whole lot but with a gig of RAM I figured it would run relatively smoothly. The screen is not very responsive and after downloading Angry Birds and Slacker from the Amazon App Store, AB is choppy and jerky and Slacker won't run. I sign into my account, choose a radio station and get a Connecting... Buffering.... even that repeats over and over again. I'm on my home wireless and no other devices have these issues. I've reinstalled Slacker a few times with the same result. Typing is frustrating as sometimes you have to tap the letter multiple times before it actually types out in the box.

I'll keep it as a knock around tablet but it was pretty disappointing. I haven't tried Netflix yet. That's the next test. I have no idea how to root this thing so until I find out how to do that I'm stuck with it as is.

Edited to add: the speaker is total crap. At the loudest volume you can barely hear it.

Edited again: Just tried Netflix. It opened up a TV show and the play line doesn't move at all. Surfing the web works but anything I attempt to stream doesn't work. Very odd. I have multiple tablets here (Thrive 10.1, iPad 1 and 2, Kindle Fire) and tried them all with no problems. Turned the wireless off on all of them and went back to this new one and had the same issue. Terrible.

The volume coming from the speaker is understandable, you can fix this with a program called Volume+. I find setting the peak vol at 15 does the trick to make it loud

As with any KIRF/Clone tablet, do a full system reset, out the box it seems as if it performs slower than if you do a factory reset in settings. Sometimes it makes the difference.

 

[vdubbus77]

http://www.androidtablets.net/forum...-recovery-6-0-1-0-a10-ly-f1-treq-tablets.html


Everything works except what is specified. You can do a nandroid backup, restore, wipe cache, full wipe, and even flash zips. I tried to flash cyanogenmod but the touch screen didn't work natively. The tablet uses the zet6221.ko touchscreen driver, same as in the pico devices. Haven't found a compatibility zip that works for the cmp741e yet. I have made backups of the boot.img and bootloader.img from the appropriate partitions.

Doing a nandroid restore I had initially lost use of the touch screen and wifi, but pushing back the boot.img and bootloader.img in adb I got back both functions.

ok flashed this recovery still can't enter recovery from boot! Damn!

 

[8125Omnimax]

ok flashed this recovery still can't enter recovery from boot! Damn!

The only stress free way is to use a terminal emulator from the play store

Make sure you're rooted

At the terminal prompt type:

su

You will see a pop up from superuser, select allow.

Copy the reboot-recovery.sh file to the root of your sdcard

When you start up the terminal type:

sh reboot-recovery.sh

You'll go right into the cwm recovery

Don't flash anything yet, I'm currently hard at work testing out and editing custom compatibility zips and attempting a cyanogenmod 9 Rom for this device. Keep an eye on the thread once I have a working zip of either. I'll provide a full instructional.

I want to make sure I have the sound, wifi, and touchscreen working before I release.