[Hopelessness]

I would imagine that th Edimax ew-7318usg would work too, the Edimax stick uses the Realtek RT73 which I believe the M001 uses (lots of cheap embedded linux devices use this chipset). The Edimax stick also offers an external antenna connector and is pretty cheap.

 

[Hopelessness]

FYI, it does have an antenna, just a small on pcb one. It's probably mostly the placement that's killing it.