Opera Mobile 9.5 beta released

Filed under: Windows Mobile, Mobile Minute, Beta, Browsers

Opera Mobile 9.5 beta released

by Brad Linder Jul 17th 2008

Opera Mobile 9.5 beta is out today, and it's already the slickest web browser available for Windows Mobile devices. Opera has always been faster than Pocket Internet Explorer at quickly rendering web pages, but Opera Mobile 9.5 beta does a far better job of displaying web pages quickly and accurately than the last stable version, Opera Mobile 8.65.

Probably the most dramatic difference between Opera Mobile 9.5 beta and earlier versions of the software is the support for full desktop page views. In other words, you can see a complete web page pretty much exactly as you would on a desktop. Of course, most web sites aren't designed for cellphones and PDAs with screens as small as 320 x 240 pixels. So The text is pretty much unreadable in this view. But you can drag and drop the screen to find the portion you want to read and a little double click action zooms in and makes the text nice and readable. In other words, Opera Mobile 9.5 beta works a lot like the Safari browser on the iPhone.

The updated browser is also designed to make the most of your device's screen real estate. By default, Opera functions in full screen mode, with no toolbars at the top or bottom of your page. If you need to switch tabs, enter a URL, or hit the back button, you just tap on a small, semi-transparent arrow that hangs out near the bottom of your screen to bring up a menu.

Opera Mobile 9.5 is still in beta, and there are a few known issues. For example, one of the biggest improvements Opera has planned is support for Flash Lite 3 which will allow users to view YouTube movies and other Flash video content. But ActiveX is disabled in this beta release, and that means Flash plugins are disabled and embedded video streams will not play.

Opera Mobile 9.5 is available for free while in beta, and is designed for Windows Mobile 5.0 and Windows Mobile 6. You should also make sure to install the browser to your device's main memory, as Opera reports that installing to a memory card could cause problems.

Tags: mobile-browser, opera-mobile, opera-mobile-9.5, opera-mobile-9.5-beta, web-browser

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

James said 12:46PM on 7-17-2008

I had the pre-public release that was floating around for a while now, and while I like the interface (especially drag-to-scroll), I had two major complaints:

a) It loads a LOT slower than PIE -- up to ~30 seconds from clicking on it till I can enter an address, especially if there's anything else running at the same time

b) The desktop view is pretty much useless, since most sites (like DLS and other WLI blogs) have wide enough text columns under desktop rendering that you're either zoomed out too far to read the text, or zoomed in too far to fit the column on one screen. You either zoom in far enough to make it readable, then drag back and forth to read each line (ugh), or tinker with zooming in and out over and over until you get it to exactly the right size so the column is exactly as wide as the screen. I'd like to see a fast, responsive analog zoom (like the slider on Google Maps) so you could find this "sweet spot" more quickly.

I'm going to upgrade to the public beta as soon as I get a chance, in hopes that some of these issues are addressed.

Joel said 10:12AM on 7-18-2008

It is slower than pIE/IEM. But it is also doing a batter job at rendering than pIE/IEM. Speed comparisons don't really do it justice since one would essentially be comparing how much faster something can be sloppily rendered than properly rendered.

Christian said 1:03PM on 7-17-2008

I do hope they release this for UIQ3 for my phone...

Taylor said 2:14PM on 7-17-2008

I'm just amused that it randomly says "stuff" at the end of the article, heh.
-Taylor

James said 6:37PM on 7-17-2008

Well, it turns out the public beta *is* faster and more stable than the non-public one. It still takes longer than PIE to launch, but it's more bearable. The UI is MUCH more responsive than the other release as well. Overall, I think I really like it!

Troy Dixon said 4:53PM on 7-19-2008

I need a flashplayer for motorola l7 2

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