[nicabod]

@Mistwolf: I'd love to have better words for you*, but I'm concluding that the Craig Android tablets are all "lemons". They are unfit for the general public; only talented geeks can make them useful for much more than showing the time and demonstrating resistive touch screens.
*Katie1 seems like such a nice person, hate to see her get caught up in this.

Others have had connects immediately followed by disconnects; in my case, IIrc it said ¨looking for IP", which didn't make sense. (Doing its own DHCP?) It did actually send to and receive a few dozen data packets from the 'Net, but IIrc gave up soon afterward.

Seems to me that the software is created with no access to the full variety of our ISPs and wireless routers, and perhaps tested with few, if any competing wireless links. Even the OLPC* people, early on, had some difficulty with lots of machines close together. *One Laptop Per Child

I don't know enough about wireless design to tell whether the antenna scheme in a Craig 738b is good. It has to connect through the black shiny plastic, somewhat to the right of the CRAIG logo; the metal sides and bottom are excellent shields.
Might be a good idea to be sure nothing blocks access in that area. (I, too, was only about a yard/meter away from my router's antenna.)

Want to read some FAQs? Search with Bing, not Google! Google blocks just about all hits on Android tablet FAQs.
Google sells a package of accesses that Android tablet manufacturers apparently have to accept "as is" (not sure), and follow Google's terms. Those are the companies and organizations with icons on your home screen. If they gave access to FAQs, users might find out some things that would reduce Google's profits. Unfortunately, it seems that they have abandoned a "first, do no harm" point of view.

Craigs, other than the doubts I have about the wireless antenna, seem to have quite-decent hardware, especially for the money. Firmware is, partly, another story. Too few people (just one?) involved, inability to test in an typical US environment, Google's restrictions, et cetera. While a lot of it is probably excellent, some very-critical parts are nearly useless.

Of course, I could be wrong about this, some or all, but I've spent probably a hundred hours, mostly spinning my wheels in shredded Teflon, so to speak, struggling and learning. Fwiw, I was a midnight hacker in 1960, although away from computers totally between '62 and '81.

I surely hope not too many people "bricked"* their Craigs by trying to install the 738A firmware; it's not compatible. I was horrified when I read this whole thread, every message, wondering how many people expected that 738A firmware would work in a 738b. *Disabled -- as useful as a brick

(Almost) last, but by no means least, I think it's borderline crazy to expect non-technical owners to need to update all the firmware in a machine to make it really useful! In fixed-location computers, updating a BIOS, and some other firmware is usually done by experts, seems to me.

Anybody want photos of the innards? I hesitate to post the rest of my text; it just seems unfair. I would be sure to include all remarks for the photos, if they're not already posted. Not totally sure I still have the rest of the text, either...

Good luck, folks! Do think about keeping yours, hoping that Craig will get its act together.

Whether Exalted Greed is at the root of the proliferation of Android (and other) tablets is the root cause, I'm not certain, but it's likely.

P.S.: What the heck is this? Just above this text-entry field, it says, "Logged in as Nicabod". When I try to preview, it says I'm not logged in!! All too easy to lose every byte of one's text in such a trap. Took a screen shot showing that I'm logged in.

Saved my text to the clipboard, logged in (again), and pasted it here.
Bummer!

I'm seriously considering buying a refurb. color Nook at a B&N store.

I do wish you well!
[nb]