Ok, about my experience with the Craig Tablet.
The latest techno obsession is the hand held. Found the Craig for $99. As far as I know, CVS is the only store that sells them, but barely. My local store had only one. I called 5 CVS stores with no luck since mine was having problems with the internal keyboard typing "L" and "K" randomly so I wanted to exchange it. They all said they had none in stock. That it was a promotional item and they get them when they get them. As it turned out, my local store had one in the back the day I returned mine. The cashier told me about it so I got a replacement. Internal keyboard was fine on this one but the wi-fi wouldn't connect to any networks or to my router as the first one did effortlessly so for all you that are posting about not being able to connect to your routers and also, if it is not picking up any neighborhood networks and showing them in the list of available networks, it's most likely that you have a defective unit too.
This may be old news to some but for a hand-held newbie like myself it was the deal breaker for me. If I read something like this before I bought it, I wouldn't have bought it. I just found an article after the fact but that's because I knew what to look for. I looked up one of the permissions given to some of the apps called: "read and write contact data" and that's how I got some information.
OK, here's what I found just snooping around the system to learn about it.
It boasts 4GB of internal storage. But, before I added any files to the tablet, I found out that I only have 181mb available for my use. So, out of the 4GB, you get, what? Less than 1/20th of that space for you because of the many pre installed apps (many of which you probably won't use). So, of course you'll be in for a micro SD card from the start. So, the newbie that I am, I 'm thinking that I'll just uninstall some of the useless applications that came pre installed. No dice. You can't uninstall a factory installed application. You can clear the data (lets hope it actually does) and you can stop the app from running in the background and using valuable system resources. (But only temporarily since many are set to "default start up" so they will start again when you reboot ) But the "uninstall" option is greyed. Then I found a pre installed app called "Securty Guard". I opened it and it gives you an option to uninstall but reports: "uninstall was unsuccessful" each time you try. So that's that. But Security Guard does give details about each pre installed app and that's where I found something shocking. Before I get to that, there is an application called: "Maps". This preinstalled application also acts as a GPS and pins down your location from within 60 meters of where you are. (around 75 yards). OK, here is what I found, Facebook and Twitter (among other apps) are given permission to access your GPS location by default and you can't change the default setting. They are also given permission by default to access your personal contacts information among other permissions that I don't understand now. Wow. I paid for the thing and get hardly any say in how things work? Sure there's a lot of talk about rooting...a risky process where you can get some control over your tablet. I'm not past giving that a try (even though it may result in "bricking" your tablet) but, as far as I know, there isn't anything available for the "Craig CMP738b" model yet, only the "Craig CMP738a" model.
I had no idea what I was getting so I'm hoping I can alert someone about it. These days when privacy is so rare, are we really gonna let them get us all hopped up to buy a toy that locates us from within 60 meters of where we are at any given time, that allows websites to track our location where ever we go and that are given access to information about the people we store in our contacts, what we do on the Internet and even what is stored on our systems? Back to CVS it goes.
I'm hoping this post gets pinned but, at the very least, I'm hoping it doesn't get deleted.
All the best to you.
The latest techno obsession is the hand held. Found the Craig for $99. As far as I know, CVS is the only store that sells them, but barely. My local store had only one. I called 5 CVS stores with no luck since mine was having problems with the internal keyboard typing "L" and "K" randomly so I wanted to exchange it. They all said they had none in stock. That it was a promotional item and they get them when they get them. As it turned out, my local store had one in the back the day I returned mine. The cashier told me about it so I got a replacement. Internal keyboard was fine on this one but the wi-fi wouldn't connect to any networks or to my router as the first one did effortlessly so for all you that are posting about not being able to connect to your routers and also, if it is not picking up any neighborhood networks and showing them in the list of available networks, it's most likely that you have a defective unit too.
This may be old news to some but for a hand-held newbie like myself it was the deal breaker for me. If I read something like this before I bought it, I wouldn't have bought it. I just found an article after the fact but that's because I knew what to look for. I looked up one of the permissions given to some of the apps called: "read and write contact data" and that's how I got some information.
OK, here's what I found just snooping around the system to learn about it.
It boasts 4GB of internal storage. But, before I added any files to the tablet, I found out that I only have 181mb available for my use. So, out of the 4GB, you get, what? Less than 1/20th of that space for you because of the many pre installed apps (many of which you probably won't use). So, of course you'll be in for a micro SD card from the start. So, the newbie that I am, I 'm thinking that I'll just uninstall some of the useless applications that came pre installed. No dice. You can't uninstall a factory installed application. You can clear the data (lets hope it actually does) and you can stop the app from running in the background and using valuable system resources. (But only temporarily since many are set to "default start up" so they will start again when you reboot ) But the "uninstall" option is greyed. Then I found a pre installed app called "Securty Guard". I opened it and it gives you an option to uninstall but reports: "uninstall was unsuccessful" each time you try. So that's that. But Security Guard does give details about each pre installed app and that's where I found something shocking. Before I get to that, there is an application called: "Maps". This preinstalled application also acts as a GPS and pins down your location from within 60 meters of where you are. (around 75 yards). OK, here is what I found, Facebook and Twitter (among other apps) are given permission to access your GPS location by default and you can't change the default setting. They are also given permission by default to access your personal contacts information among other permissions that I don't understand now. Wow. I paid for the thing and get hardly any say in how things work? Sure there's a lot of talk about rooting...a risky process where you can get some control over your tablet. I'm not past giving that a try (even though it may result in "bricking" your tablet) but, as far as I know, there isn't anything available for the "Craig CMP738b" model yet, only the "Craig CMP738a" model.
I had no idea what I was getting so I'm hoping I can alert someone about it. These days when privacy is so rare, are we really gonna let them get us all hopped up to buy a toy that locates us from within 60 meters of where we are at any given time, that allows websites to track our location where ever we go and that are given access to information about the people we store in our contacts, what we do on the Internet and even what is stored on our systems? Back to CVS it goes.
I'm hoping this post gets pinned but, at the very least, I'm hoping it doesn't get deleted.
All the best to you.
