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been trying an alpha version of opera 9.5 mobile
stevej26uk
09-03-2008
The last couple of days I've been playing about with an alpha (not beta) version of the new opera mobile on my htc touch and must say its looking quite impressive, it's fairly painful to use over the touch's gprs connection but is great over wifi and probably equally as good on 3g winmo devices.

It wipes the floor of the mobile version of internet explorer and may finally mean that winmo users will have a browser to rival the iphone's safari and nokia's series 60 browser.

It's very quick at rendering pages, has stolen a lot of ideas from safari but in some ways implemented them better.

Here's hoping that opera get a move on and get it finished as it is still quite buggy at the moment.

If winmo manufacturers start including it by default when the finished version is out what a cracking browser win mo will have.
skimminstones
09-03-2008
cant see windows mobile using it as default. Internet explorer is microsofts baby isnt it? Still, would be easy enough to download when its released
stevej26uk
09-03-2008
it really is quite good, im sure htc have bundled opera into some of their devices before.

Would also be cool to see opera make a version for the iphone and give users a choice of browsers I think in terms of rendering speed the alpha version is faster than safari anyway so the final version will no doubt be quicker, cant see apple letting them do it though!

Also tried the netfront beta but while its more stable than opera, rendering speeds are poor.
kris_akabusi
09-03-2008
great news... opera mobile and mini reeaaaallly need wifi capabilities
stevej26uk
09-03-2008
Originally Posted by kris_akabusi:
“great news... opera mobile and mini reeaaaallly need wifi capabilities”

Opera mini is fine over 2g, excellent over 3g and of course good on wifi.

Opera mobile having only tried it on a 2g htc touch is ok but slow on 2g, superfast over wi-fi withdoubt the fastest rendering of any browser on a mobile device I've seen, my wife has an ipod touch so I might run them side by side over wi-fi.
Bearing in mind that 3g hsdpa is broadband speed I suspect opera mobile over 3g hsdpa would be much the same as wi-fi.

I have used opera mini over hsdpa on my n95 and its great very fast, I just dont like the way your data goes through opera's servers first whereas with opera mobile it doesnt.
stevej26uk
09-03-2008
Just ran some tests, running my partners ipod touch and my htc touch both on wi-fi, with the touch using opera 9.5 alpha version.

While admit its not exactly the most scientific test because of many varibles it poroduced some interesting results.

bbc new website : rendered much quicker on opera than ipod

digital spy : rendered about the same ipod maybe a fraction faster

bebo: rendered very close but opera was first to fully load

sky news : rendered quicker on ipod

facebook : rendered much quicker

On the whole I found opera rendered the pages much quicker, but the interface of the ipods safari was better.
kris_akabusi
09-03-2008
Originally Posted by stevej26uk:
“Opera mini is fine over 2g, excellent over 3g and of course good on wifi.

Opera mobile having only tried it on a 2g htc touch is ok but slow on 2g, superfast over wi-fi withdoubt the fastest rendering of any browser on a mobile device I've seen, my wife has an ipod touch so I might run them side by side over wi-fi.
Bearing in mind that 3g hsdpa is broadband speed I suspect opera mobile over 3g hsdpa would be much the same as wi-fi.

I have used opera mini over hsdpa on my n95 and its great very fast, I just dont like the way your data goes through opera's servers first whereas with opera mobile it doesnt.”

afaik... the current full release version of Opera Mini does not support Wifi - this is certainly the case on my Blackberry 8320 which is wifi capable
stevej26uk
09-03-2008
Originally Posted by kris_akabusi:
“afaik... the current full release version of Opera Mini does not support Wifi - this is certainly the case on my Blackberry 8320 which is wifi capable”

I've used it on wi-fi with my htc touch, I know it using the wi-fi because the phone part is off, as for my n95 I've never honestly tried it.

Strange it doesnt work on blackberry maybe certain devices are different.

Im seriously impressed with both opera mini and the new opera mobile, mobile browsing is certainly getting better!
Still been testing the opera 9.5 against my partners ipod touch safari and opera seems on the whole to render quicker, the user interface is still better on safari but i'm sure opera will improve a lot before beta and final versions.
prking
10-03-2008
Originally Posted by kris_akabusi:
“afaik... the current full release version of Opera Mini does not support Wifi - this is certainly the case on my Blackberry 8320 which is wifi capable”

Opera Mini does indeed support Wi-Fi, it just asks for a connection and doesn't care what form that takes.

Unfortunately, there are some bugs in various Blackberries which mean Wi-Fi doesn't work properly and prevents landscape mode from working, amongst other things.
stevej26uk
11-03-2008
Just an update my wife got her upgrade 2day, to the touch dual which I have swopped her for my nokia n95.
So have been testing opera 9.5 on the touch dual and as i supsected over hsdpa its lightning fast a real joy to use and almost as quick as over wifi.

Come on opera give us the final version!!, winmo device's will at last have a browser that is as good as if not better than safari on the iphone.
prking
11-03-2008
Where did you get the alpha from and was a Series 60 version available?

According to Operawatch, the public beta will be in the Spring with full release later in the year.

There are also rumours that it will be free, to compete with Google Mobile, Firefox Mobile, Skyfire etc.
stevej26uk
11-03-2008
Originally Posted by prking:
“Where did you get the alpha from and was a Series 60 version available?

According to Operawatch, the public beta will be in the Spring with full release later in the year.

There are also rumours that it will be free, to compete with Google Mobile, Firefox Mobile, Skyfire etc.”

I got the alpha version from xda-developers its a winmo website, as far as I know there is no leaked alpha/beta for series 60.

Sounds good that it might be free
prking
11-03-2008
Thanks for the info.
Apparently, the cost (or not) is being hotly debated within Opera. This is why no-one from Opera will make any comments on 9.5. Can you imagine if anyone bought 8.65 and then found out 9.5 was free a few weeks later!
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