And you thought this day would never come. The official release of Opera Mobile 10 is now available for Windows Mobile, marking the end of several long beta periods. If you still need to see what you're getting into, check out our video review of the Opera Mobile 10 beta. Then head on over to Opera and get your download on. [Opera Mobile]
Browsing the Internet is one of those things that can be a major draw for people looking to purchase a smartphone, but can be rather hit or miss due to the lack of quality mobile web browsers. For my money, having a choice between which browser you use in different situations can be a deal breaker. Luckily, Windows Mobile has more browser choices than many of its competitors.
Opera has been in the mobile browser game as long as anyone and their browsers are among the best. Opera Mini 5 Beta 2 is the latest and greatest from Opera’s Mini product. Traditionally a Java based application; Opera announced today that Opera Mini 5 is available as a native Windows Mobile application. There are technical reasons why having a native application is preferable over a Java based version. The bottom line is that a native Windows Mobile application should offer better performance, stability, and compatibility across a large array of devices.
My first impression with Opera Mini 5 is that it is FAST, though the rendering engine isn’t perfect. Mini 5 uses server side rendering; meaning that when you request a web page, a server somewhere actually downloads the files and formats it and compresses it before sending it along to your device. This method keeps your data usage to a minimum and doesn’t require as much processing power on your device. The Mini 5 UI is also very similar to what we’ve been playing with on the Opera Mobile 10 betas, which I consider a very clean and usable interface.
More information on the features you can expect from Opera Mini are available from Opera’s site. To download the application, point your mobile browser to http://m.opera.com/next/mini.
It has been quite a few weeks since Opera graced us with a new beta of Opera Mobile 10 and we've been wondering just what have they been up to in the mean time.
The answer is they've been busy adding Flash Lite support to the browser in addition to improving speed by 50% (according to them). Not bad, not bad. Then again, they were rumored to be adding Flash lite one year ago.
To refresh, Flash Lite is what Mobile Internet Explorer has been using for at least a year already (Microsoft really doesn't get enough credit for that fact). It's not full Flash, but it will allow you to watch YouTube and some other embedded videos within the browser, which is a start. In fact, due to the aging OS and standard hardware, doing full Flash would really drag the device down.
Other fixes/changes include:
That's right Standard users, you finally get keypad support! Looks like Opera didn't forget you exist. To turn on Flash Lite, since it is off by default, go to Tools --> Settings --> Advanced and set Plug-ins to “On”.
Grab the browser here: www.opera.com/mobile/download
[via RedmondPie]
Just in time for the holidays comes a small update to the rapidly evolving Opera Mobile 10 browser (see earlier hands on video and review here).
This new update contains the following fixes/additions:
[MobileTechWorld via PPCGeeks]
OK, folks, here it is: The Opera Mobile 10 beta. For a beta release, however, it's pretty darn complete and could well serve as your daily mobile browser. Not convinced? Peep the video after the break as we put it through its paces, and put it up against the iPhone 3G's Safari browser.
First there was Opera Mobile 9.5 beta, which gave way to Opera Mobile 9.7 beta. Now, enter Opera Mobile 10 beta for Symbian. And it looks like a likely progression and brings much-improved password management, among a host of other features. Question is, will we see Opera Mobile 10 on Windows Mobile? Wmpoweruser says yes, unofficially, even though there's zero mention of WinMo in the Symbian release. So, we'll just have to see. [Opera Mobile 10 beta]
Browser wars are a favorite pastime among smartphone nerds, and here we have a battle royale from Solopalmari featuring the iPhone, the HTC HD2 and the Acer neoTouch (don't expect to see that one in the states anytime soon). Of course, this test isn't really indicative of anything other than showing how fast each browser is on each phone — we'll leave the "best!" comments up to you guys in the comments.
Via Mobile Tech World and wmpoweruser
For those who just can't wait till Opera 9.7+ and want to add Flash support to your existing in-ROM Opera Mobile browser, aDEO at XDA has updated that amazing little tool called fixOperaFlash.
Hacking Flash into Opera has been around for awhile, but aDEO's app makes it the process a matter of clicking a few buttons with a fancy and sophisticated installer. The program was just recently updated to v1.5.2, with updated Flash library package and some minor bug fixes.
Basically you just download the .exe, put it into your \Windows\Opera direction, run it and follow the directions so detailed here. Make sure you choose the right device from the selector.
So how does it work? Pretty well though any limitations come clearly from our aging MSM processors, which struggle to run Flash inside of the resource intensive Opera Mobile browser--in other words, don't plan on too much multi-tasking when watching embedded YouTube videos! Still, it works well on the Touch Pro 2.
Having said that, this is a great example of smart programming, so give it a spin if Flash is what you need.
So over the last few days you may have heard about Opera releasing their latest beta of Opera Mini, version 5 — which of course is different from Opera Mobile. The former relies on Java and renders on a server (like Skyfire), whereas the latter runs natively on Windows Mobile and runs direct to the web.
It's been 2 years since version 4 came out, so it makes sense for an overhaul.
There seems to be a hardcore following of Opera Mini out there though, so we just took it for a spin. Our thoughts? Yeah, it's pretty darn good. In fact, you can really feels how Opera is aiming to merge both Mini and Mobile into one — the graphics in Mini look more and more like Mobile and Mobile 9.7 beta is getting Mini's server-based rendering in the guise of "Turbo Mode".
If you already have Java installed, then just hop here to download the Opera Mini 5 update. Have no idea about any of this stuff but just want to try it? Boxer112 cab'd it up for us, which you can download from your favorite file host or grab it from ppcgeeks. Just run the .cab and bam, you'll have an Opera Mini 5, Start menu icon and Java installed. Easy!
See the full press release here on Opera Mini 5
Update 2: Matt checks back in and lets us know that while there is a check box for "Turbo," it doesn't enable a proxy like in the 9.7 beta.
Original: One of the main features of the Opera Mobile 9.7 beta is the "Turbo" feature, which basically switches the browser to a proxy mode, rendering the page elsewhere and piping it to your phone. Bottom line: It's faster, but with more security concerns.
But it turns out the Turbo mode is available in the build of Opera Mobile 9.5 found on the recently released T-Mobile Touch Pro 2. Matt Miller (of Nokia Experts fame and his own ZDNet blog) discovered such and shares the details:
Matt also details a couple of other tricks, such as setting Opera to be the default browser in TouchFLO 3D, and increasing the number of tabs possible in the browser. Check it all out here.
Update: Our pal Gregory, who reviewed the Telus Touch Pro 2 for us, er, tells us that the Turbo mode is available in the Canadian version, too.
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