Bernie’s Ramblings

Opera 4 Mini Is Out And Is The Mobile Best Browser Yet!

Check out the cool browser from Opera. I’ve had the opinion that the S60 Web browser that comes with S60 3rd Edition (and later) phones is really the best mobile browser, providing almost a desktop experience of the web but the new Opera Mini 4 might just dethrone it. Opera Mini 4 is definitely much better at rendering websites compared to the earlier non-beta Opera Mini and Pocket IE bundled with Windows Mobile devices.

P/S: I’m really surprised that a lot of people don’t know that their phones can browse HTML (not just WAP) sites by just installing Opera Mini. All you need is Java mobile support which is common among mid and high end phones.

Update: Some Symbian blogs have already caught up with the news. Check out OM 4 on the Nokia E61i.

More updates: Managed to get it running on an iPAQ 6965. Note that to get it installed, head to www.operamini.com/beta using Pocket Internet Explorer. Click on the link ‘Download high memory version’ and follow prompts by the Esmertec Java software manager that is provided with your device.The browser compares favorably to the S60 Browser, and then some! I especially like the feature where the Mini will automatically re-align the screen when there’s off-screen text (which happens often because the limited resolution on your mobile phone). The zoom also works very well though on my QWERTY keypad, I need 2 key presses to zoom out again. I wished one of the soft-keys on screen would be assigned to toggle the zoom. Currently, one is assigned to Back and the other to Menu. I don’t get it, I access the Menu like once or twice when I begin to use the application (to see what settings to play around with) but after that, I rarely use it. Change that to toggle zoom, please (or at least make the soft-key configurable).

Still, it’s a small quirk for a very excellent piece of software. Also, even in Beta, Opera Mini 4 is stable. I can’t wait for the official release.