Just Bought the CRAIG Android 7" Tablet from CVS

[tschill]

How do I backup the ROM before I flash? Anyone?

Thanks,

Tom

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by roc

Odd spec of Flash 8 - I am thinking some version of 10 is what is being put on most other Froyo tablets.

Here is the link to Craig's spec page, and note that it has a link for downloading Android 2.1 image for recovery purposes, so that is another oddity here.

FWIW

The thing about the link on their page is that it doesn't actually work. It's just a link back to their homepage.

I'll e-mail the customer service contact I have and see if I can get the update. I'm not sure it's worth it, though. As you noted, it's an older version of Flash, and there's already a Froyo custom build for the tablet (although I haven't tried it in a while).

[Harpmaker]

Hi folks, new here and new to tablets in general. I have a problem I hope you can explain and perhaps cure.

I recently bought a Craig 738a, mostly for viewing photos and videos, and was quite pleased with it. However, I wanted to access the Android Market so I was preparing to do a ROM upgrade. Being safety minded I wanted to backup the current data and ROM in case something went wrong so I was following the instructions given here. Everything went fine until I installed and used Z4Root. I think running that program bricked by 738a. Even though I had chosen, per directions, to have Z4Root install a temporary root, rebooting the tablet did nothing.

The problem is that after I power up the unit, after unlocking the unit at the "Welcome screen" (or whatever this is properly called) I get the error message "The process com.google.process.gapps has stopped working as expected. Please try again." At this point the only thing I can do is press "Force close". When I do that another error message is displayed reading "The process android.process.acore has stopped working as expected. Please try again." and again the only thing I can do is press "Force close" which causes the screen to go black (except for the top line containing the time), the same error message pops up, the wallpaper pops up behind the message and then the normal icons pop up being the error message.

Other than this activity the tablet is totally non-responsive, I can't even get into settings to deactivate USB Host mode to hook it to a PC.

I can press and hold the power button which will open the normal "device options" window under the error message and after pressing "Force close" I can power down the unit as normal, but that's it.

Is there any way to resurrect this unit or is it permanently bricked? As far as I can deduce the problem is due to running the Z4Root program.

To stay on-topic with the main forum, I do intend to use my 738a as an eBook reader, but that job is currently being filled by my $40 Literati. OK, quit your snickerin', that little reader has worked fine for me.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Harpmaker

Hi folks, new here and new to tablets in general. I have a problem I hope you can explain and perhaps cure.

I recently bought a Craig 738a, mostly for viewing photos and videos, and was quite pleased with it. However, I wanted to access the Android Market so I was preparing to do a ROM upgrade. Being safety minded I wanted to backup the current data and ROM in case something went wrong so I was following the instructions given here. Everything went fine until I installed and used Z4Root. I think running that program bricked by 738a. Even though I had chosen, per directions, to have Z4Root install a temporary root, rebooting the tablet did nothing.

The problem is that after I power up the unit, after unlocking the unit at the "Welcome screen" (or whatever this is properly called) I get the error message "The process com.google.process.gapps has stopped working as expected. Please try again." At this point the only thing I can do is press "Force close". When I do that another error message is displayed reading "The process android.process.acore has stopped working as expected. Please try again." and again the only thing I can do is press "Force close" which causes the screen to go black (except for the top line containing the time), the same error message pops up, the wallpaper pops up behind the message and then the normal icons pop up being the error message.

Other than this activity the tablet is totally non-responsive, I can't even get into settings to deactivate USB Host mode to hook it to a PC.

I can press and hold the power button which will open the normal "device options" window under the error message and after pressing "Force close" I can power down the unit as normal, but that's it.

Is there any way to resurrect this unit or is it permanently bricked? As far as I can deduce the problem is due to running the Z4Root program.

To stay on-topic with the main forum, I do intend to use my 738a as an eBook reader, but that job is currently being filled by my $40 Literati. OK, quit your snickerin', that little reader has worked fine for me.

Even if you can't get into host mode, you should be able to get into recovery mode. Hold down Power + Home at the same time while you're plugging in the Craig to the USB. Then you should be able to flash the unit with the firmware, resurrecting it. I recommend flashing it with this firmware. The flashing tool can be found here.

Let me know if you need help. Basically, you're going to run RKBatchUpgrade.exe and choose your img file as the Image to feed the program. After a few minutes, your unit should be flashed, and you should be good to go.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by tschill

How do I backup the ROM before I flash? Anyone?

Thanks,

Tom

TikaC has made an excellent tutorial for backing up the ROM. You can find that here.

[Harpmaker]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

Even if you can't get into host mode, you should be able to get into recovery mode. Hold down Power + Home at the same time while you're plugging in the Craig to the USB. Then you should be able to flash the unit with the firmware, resurrecting it. I recommend flashing it with this firmware. The flashing tool can be found here.

Let me know if you need help. Basically, you're going to run RKBatchUpgrade.exe and choose your img file as the Image to feed the program. After a few minutes, your unit should be flashed, and you should be good to go.

Thanks for the reply. I basically did what you suggested, but I followed the directions I found here where Miss Spacy had a similar problem to mine. Like her, when I plugged my 738a into the PC (even after loading the driver for it) it never showed up in a window or as a drive. Using the RKBatchUpgrade program did the trick and I'm now running the 4.3 firmware.

Did Z4Root zap my 738a or was it just coincidence? I see you have recommended those same backup instructions.

[valarie]

has anyone tried the new viewsonic tablet and what is it like?????

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Harpmaker

Thanks for the reply. I basically did what you suggested, but I followed the directions I found here where Miss Spacy had a similar problem to mine. Like her, when I plugged my 738a into the PC (even after loading the driver for it) it never showed up in a window or as a drive. Using the RKBatchUpgrade program did the trick and I'm now running the 4.3 firmware.

Did Z4Root zap my 738a or was it just coincidence? I see you have recommended those same backup instructions.

Honestly, I'm not sure what caused your problem. I'm pretty sure I'm not running z4Root, though. I installed Superuser and that does the trick for me.

[tipstir]

Craig has 10 new tablets being released, it would be interesting to see who get's what? couple of 7" next one up from CMP738A is the CMP738B with 512MB of RAM OS 2.2 some 8 and 10" tablets too. They're banking a huge turnover profit margin that low cost cheap tablets will sell more. They may be right with that idea.

[roc]

Originally Posted by tipstir

Craig has 10 new tablets being released, it would be interesting to see who get's what? couple of 7" next one up from CMP738A is the CMP738B with 512MB of RAM OS 2.2 some 8 and 10" tablets too. They're banking a huge turnover profit margin that low cost cheap tablets will sell more. They may be right with that idea.

Do you have a link for that info? Sounds more like what Coby is doing aside from that "CMP738B" model number.

[Harpmaker]

Originally Posted by tipstir

Craig has 10 new tablets being released, it would be interesting to see who get's what? couple of 7" next one up from CMP738A is the CMP738B with 512MB of RAM OS 2.2 some 8 and 10" tablets too. They're banking a huge turnover profit margin that low cost cheap tablets will sell more. They may be right with that idea.

I would be interested in a slightly more capable tablet than the 738a in a 10" version as long as the price was right (cheap ).

[Harpmaker]

OK, just updated my 738a to ROM 4.3 and while I can access the Android Market all downloads are "unsuccessful". Anyone know how to fix this? Slide works fine.

Also, has anyone compiled a list of programs that are known to work with the 738a? Yeah, I'm new so forgive me if that is a dumb question.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Harpmaker

OK, just updated my 738a to ROM 4.3 and while I can access the Android Market all downloads are "unsuccessful". Anyone know how to fix this? Slide works fine.

Also, has anyone compiled a list of programs that are known to work with the 738a? Yeah, I'm new so forgive me if that is a dumb question.

The first thing to do is to use aCCleaner to clear the cache and data for all apps. (It shouldn't take more than all Google-related apps, but do all apps, just to be sure.) Once you do that, you should be able to reboot and get into the Market. Search the thread for other people's experiences if you don't have success after that.

[Cheeky1]

I still find myself following this thread because I'm so impressed with what you guys have done with this device. If it weren't for the resistive (is that right) screen, I would go buy this again. I think if I come across the newer firmware I may give it another go.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Cheeky1

I still find myself following this thread because I'm so impressed with what you guys have done with this device. If it weren't for the resistive (is that right) screen, I would go buy this again. I think if I come across the newer firmware I may give it another go.

Yes, the Craig has a resistive screen. The advantage the capacitive screen has is multitouch. The only time the lack of multitouch really bothers me is using the browser. For most other purposes, it's a non-issue. It's the screen that makes the difference in cost. If you put a capacitive screen on the Craig, you'd be making it a $200 device, at least. For that cost differential, I can definitely deal with the resistive screen.

Once someone gets the new device and heads over to SlateDroid with the firmware, it'll be possible to hack together a version of it for the older version -- one with the Market on it, etc.