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:

1. Type opera:config in the URL box.
2. Scroll to User Prefs
3. Choose "Turbo Mode" and hit the checkbox to enable it.
4. Scroll down and hit save.

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.

We've heard from a few of you out there asking when the Ceilo Redfly mobile companion would be compatible with the Opera Mobile 9.5 beta browser. Folks, your day has come. And, more important, Celio has heard you. The latest drivers build fixes the following:

• The Opera 9.5 beta release of the browser (which ships natively with many of the phones above) is now supported.
• USB performance and speed has been significantly enhanced.
• A potential conflict between WiFi and Bluetooth can occasionally cause connections to be dropped. There are multiple things that affect Bluetooth connectivity and signal strength. This has been partially resolved.
• Basic support for Direct Draw has been added to the REDFLY driver which now means that applications that used those interfaces will render properly on the REDFLY in most cases.
• REDFLY.exe has been re-factored now to be a service under the OS for improved stability.

And things they're still working on:

• This release does not support the HTC TouchFLO interface at this time. If this setting is enabled in the phone, REDFLY attempts to turn it off programmatically when you connect with the REDFLY, and then turn it back on when you disconnect.
• The Sony XPERIA Panels Choice menu doesn't work when connected to REDFLY -Panels themselves scale and work, but the Choose Panel window doesn't.
• The Sony XPERIA Phone Dialer window is cut off such that you can't see the number you are dialing.
• Samsung Themes 1 and 2 are not supported with the REDFLY.
• The Samsung Today and Samsung Widgets must not be checked (turned on) in the Omnia Settings menu.
• If in portrait mode when connecting to the REDFLY, the dialer application on the Omnia will not render correctly. Connect while in landscape mode and this is not a problem.

The lads over at Opera Labs have released a tech preview of Opera Mobile 9.5 that also has support for Google Gears.

Put in their words:

The use cases for Gears differ somewhat between mobile and desktop devices. On mobile, Gears is perfect for creating a better user experience by allowing applications to cache data more efficiently, so you can cut down on bandwidth, and carry out processes discreetly in the background. On the desktop, Gears has ideal functionality for allowing your applications to function offline and synchronize data with the server when you get back online again. You can try this out for yourself with the various Gears samples available on Google Code.

Read more about it here, and then head on over for the download.

Probably the top drawback of running the Opera Mobile 9.5 beta on an older device (Shhhhhh - don't let my trusty Treo 750 hear me say that) is that it's a pretty big resource hog.

As we've previously mentioned, you can store the browser's cache files on a storage card and save yourself megabytes of precious space.

Join us after the jump for a couple of ways to do this, as well as a quick video of the procedure.

And if you haven't yet, check out Dieter's hands-on video review of the best WinMo browser since the last version of Opera Mobile dropped.

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The long-awaited Opera Mobile 9.5 is nearly ready for the public. Opera has announced that an initial beta test is slated for July 15 at www.opera.com, and we'll all be able to get our grubby little hands on it.

Opera also addresses what's taken so long:

Some versions of Opera Mobile 9.5 are already shipping on great phones like the HTC Touch Diamond, and some of you have asked why we wouldn't be able to release it publically yet. As you probably know, releasing a version that works on a large variety of phones is more complex than making it work on one specific phone. You should also expect a few differences between the versions that are pre-installed on phones and the public version of Opera Mobile 9.5.

So, the beta version may contain a few differences than what was seen in a hands-on review back in February.