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Opera Mini's always been the go-to browser for the techsavvy-but-still-using a featurephone crowd. I've also found myself using it on Windows Mobile despite the fact that there are native versions of the browser available. It looks like that trend is set to continue with the latest Beta of Opera Mini, codenamed "dimension." It is, in a word, sweet. check out this feature list:
- "X marks the spot" — start at the right place. When you load a page, Opera Mini will automatically suggest a place to begin reading. When it's time to dive into the page, Opera Mini zooms in and cleanly focuses on the content you want.
- Opera Mini dynamically changes the size of text and images to make it convenient to read without a lot of unnecessary scrolling.
- A mouse! We included a virtual mouse to make it easy to scroll in any direction. The mouse cursor will look for content and links, and snap the view to them.
- Scroll faster using the keypad. Simply hit 2 to go up, 4 to go left, 6 to go right and 8 to go down. Opera Mini will snap the view to the content. Hit 5 to zoom in and out.
- Page loads more than 2x faster than other mobile browsers. Opera Mini speed comparsion
- CSS support
The big points to me are the PC/Zoom mode that's so popular with the kids these days (ex. from the Wii and the iPhone's browsers) and the full support for standard CSS. A mouse pointer is a neat idea, but I'm not really sold on it. There are plenty of other new features to the beta, so it's worth the download. More screenshots after the break.
Oh, and here's chutzpah for you: Opera Mini vs iPhone. Bang!
Read: Opera Mini™ 4 beta: Features
Update: More Opera Mini details where you'd likely expect them, the Opera Watch Blog. Added because - dang, check out these Acid2 Test Results - insanely close to perfect:
More screen shots
