Opera has released the second public beta of Opera Mobile 9.5. There are two major changes since the last beta release. First, Opera Mobile 9.5 is available for Symbia UIQ as well as Windows Mobile devices. And second, the browser now supports Opera Widgets.

Widgets for mobile devices don't necessarily work the same way as widgets on a full sized computer. You can't fit a bunch of widgets on a 2 or 3 inch screen at the same time the way you can with desktop widgets. So what exactly is an Opera Mobile Widget?

Basically, it's a one-click web application. Rather than launching your mobile web browser and navigating to a page, you can click a widget icon and access a web page or application designed to work well with the Opera Mobile browser. Right now there 5 widgets available, including a clock, weather app, and Twitter application. The advantage of using widgets instead of bookmarks is that you can save the icons on your home screen or in a widget directory and you can access them with a single click.

Opera Mobile 9.5 also features the ability to view the full desktop version of web pages or zoom in for a closer look, much as you can do with Safari for the iPhone or the Google Android web browser.

The browser is free while in beta. No word on when the final version will be released, but there's a good chance that it will cost about $30 when it is available. That's the price Opera typically charges for its mobile browser. Of course, if Mozilla manages to push out Firefox mobile before then, Opera might feel the need to drop the price a bit.

The iPhone gets a lot of attention these days, and rightly so. It's an attractive phone/media player with a beautiful interface. And Apple brought the idea of an innovative finger-friendly multi-touch display to the masses. But you know what? The iPhone isn't for everyone. There are plenty of things it can't do, or that you can do better with another device. And while the price of the phone continues to drop, you have to pay a rather pricey phone bill every month if you really want to make use of the phone.

With that in mind, Download Squad brings you anti-iPhone day. Throughout the day, we'll be looking at alternatives to the iPhone. To kick things off, I wanted to review some of the posts of DLS past that have already shown that there's little you can do with an iPhone that you can't already do with a Wndows Mobile-based phone.

Program Launchers

Somewhere between the time when Steve Jobs first demoed the iPhone and the day it actually hit the shelves, third party developers decided it would be cool to create an iPhone-like interface for Windows Mobile. Probably the most interesting project is FreeStyleWM, which started out its life as WhoNeedsAniPhone.

But not every third party developer wanted to replicate the iPhone interface. Some were just inspired enough to go out and create their own easy to use, finger-friendly program launchers and other applications. Thus GoodWin and iSwish were born.

Meanwhile, before the iPhone was even threatening your pocketbook, folks were puting out software that takes Windows Mobile and makes it feel like an entirely different operating system. Over a year ago, we brought you a roundup of applications designed to make Windows Mobile look and feel a bit more like Windows XP or Vista.

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.

Opera's been working on its next generation mobile web browser for months now. And while a handful of folks have been able to get their hands on devices preloaded with Opera Mobile 9.5, most of us have been waiting impatiently to get our hands the downloadable version.

While Opera might not have much market share in the desktop browser space, the company's mobile browser is miles ahead of the browsers that come standard with most Windows Mobile, Symbian, or other cellphones. Opera Mini and Opera Mobile 8.65 are already some of the best mobile browsers around. Opera Mobile 9.5 adds Flash Lite 3 support, quicker page rendering, full page zoom, a password manager, and the ability to copy and paste text selections.

Today the Opera Mobile team announced that the first public beta version of Opera Mobile 9.5 will be available for download on July 15th. If history is anything to go by, Opera will probably charge somewhere between $20 and $30 for this browser eventually. But while in beta, the browser will be free.

[via jkOnTheRun]

It's been a few months since Opera announced the company was working on a version of Opera 9.5 for Windows Mobile devices. And while Opera has historically been kind enough to offer public beta versions of their commercial software for download, Opera Mobile 9.5 has been pretty elusive so far. But ZDNet's Matt Miller managed to get his hands on a Windows Mobile device with Opera 9.5 preloaded, and suffice it to say he's pretty impressed. Here are some of the highlights from his review:

• Smooth scrolling and panning with your finger (no stylus needed)
• Context-sensitive zooming
• Tabbed browsing (this has been available in every version of Opera Mobile that we're aware of)
• Save pages for offline viewing
• Quick page rendering
• Flash Lite 3 support
• Supports text selection, copy, and paste
• Password manager
• Save or send web images

There were some problems. Miller says he could open Google Docs spreadsheets for viewing, but not Word documents. This isn't surprising, since Opera's desktop browser has had compatibility issues with Google Docs and other Google services for a long time.

No word on when Opera will be ready to release Opera Mobile 9.5 for general use. It looks like you may be able to get purchase a phone with the software preinstalled in the not too distant future. But what we're really waiting for is the day when you can download the software and install it on any device. Opera Mobile 8.65 currently has a $24 price tag. We're assuming Opera 9.5 will eventually be available for $30 or less.

[via jkOnTheRun]

Opera plans to show off its next generation mobile web browser at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week. While Opera Mobile 9.5 won't be available commercially until this spring, the company has released a video previewing some of the browser's more exciting features.

Opera also has a tendency to release public betas of its mobile software several months in advance of a commercial release. So there's a good chance you'll be able to use Opera Mobile 9.5 beta for free for a while before buying it.

In a nutshell, Opera Mobile 9.5 appears to have many of the features that have made Opera Mini popular. But unlike the Java-based Opera Mini, Opera Mobile is designed to run on Windows Mobile and Symbian phones. Opera Mobile 9.5 allows users to view full screen versions of web pages, or to zoom in for more detail. You also get tabbed browsing, fast page rendering, and convenient bookmark, transfer, and history managers.

The browser will also include a mobile version of Opera's widget engine which allows you to access some web content like Flickr images without opening a web browser. It also packs Flash Lite 3 integration for accessing Flash-heavy web pages like MySpace or YouTube.

[via the::unwired]