Browsing the Internet is one of those things that can be a major draw for people looking to purchase a smartphone, but can be rather hit or miss due to the lack of quality mobile web browsers. For my money, having a choice between which browser you use in different situations can be a deal breaker. Luckily, Windows Mobile has more browser choices than many of its competitors.
Opera has been in the mobile browser game as long as anyone and their browsers are among the best. Opera Mini 5 Beta 2 is the latest and greatest from Opera’s Mini product. Traditionally a Java based application; Opera announced today that Opera Mini 5 is available as a native Windows Mobile application. There are technical reasons why having a native application is preferable over a Java based version. The bottom line is that a native Windows Mobile application should offer better performance, stability, and compatibility across a large array of devices.
My first impression with Opera Mini 5 is that it is FAST, though the rendering engine isn’t perfect. Mini 5 uses server side rendering; meaning that when you request a web page, a server somewhere actually downloads the files and formats it and compresses it before sending it along to your device. This method keeps your data usage to a minimum and doesn’t require as much processing power on your device. The Mini 5 UI is also very similar to what we’ve been playing with on the Opera Mobile 10 betas, which I consider a very clean and usable interface.
More information on the features you can expect from Opera Mini are available from Opera’s site. To download the application, point your mobile browser to http://m.opera.com/next/mini.
Comments
This is for touchscreen devices. I installed Opera Mini 5 beta on a Samsung Epix, and there was no point in using the softkeys and the trackpad to navigate the UI. You have to use the touchscreen whether you like it or not. I uninstalled Mini and kept Opera Mobile 10 beta 3, which does have support for devices with keyboard.
Those using non-touchscreen devices, stay away from this beta of Opera Mini.
Even with that said, kudos to Opera for going native with Opera Mini for Windows phones.
Native apps do not offer stability and compatability in any way. Stability is up to the finesse of the programmer and compatability goes against the very nature of a native application... The whole point to using java is to achieve those two missing capabilities.
True in a sense, but Java apps are subject to the Java engine that they run on top of. I've heard of and experienced issues with some of the Java engines for Windows Mobile. Adding that additional layer of complexity can have adverse effects. Your statement that "Stability is up to the finesse of the programmer" is true, but a Java based app is also subject to the finesse of other developers as well.
As far as compatibility, I was referring to within the world of Windows Mobile. How many different Java environments are there for Windows Mobile? Can you say definitively that they are all good implementations? A Java based app obviously has greater compatibility across platforms, but I was referring to Windows Mobile specifically.
In managed code, no, stability is not up to the programmer. I'm not talking about safe exceptions that can be thrown; in managed code, it's not possible to allocate the wrong amount of memory and cause a buffer overflow and possibly crash the whole os. And the compatability in how I believe you're meaning with winmo is no different managed/native because either way you still have to identify the screen and find its dimentions then assign all of your form elements to resize themselves in code relative to the screen size.
The only thing native applications offer is faster execution. Everything else is up to your ability to create a rock solid app.
Well that depends.
Compatibility can vary across JVMs, as they can include support for different JSRs. If you're just referring to WM devices, compatibility probably should be improved with a dedicated app.
Stability again depends on the JVM as well as the JVM is a native application. A Java application can crash just as a a native one can (neither should take down a reasonable OS at the same time though, of course and the Java app is likely to just quit with an exception).
Java on Windows Mobile is far from ideal. From application issues with softkeys under some implementations, to the fact that outside the USA it's damn near impossible to load a JVM on your device without pirating a CAB file from somewhere. IBM j9 isn't available. jBed/jBlend is OEM only, so if your carrier doesn't preload (like, say, ALL the Canadian ones) you are SOL. Then there's the optional libraries like GPS and Bluetooth. The other JVMs like Creme are pretty much laughable.
Multitasking Java apps is a pain on Windows Mobile - they tend to want to run one at a time on the JVMs I've found.
What I like about Opera Mini Native on Windows - there is an icon on the program menu - I don't have to start the JVM, then start Opera... then restart it if I go out to another process like a phone call. Yes it's technically possible to make an icon for a Java app but that's the realm of XDA Developers, not your average Windows Phone customer (at least I HOPE it's beyond your average Windows Phone customer --- we want this to have mass appeal right, not just techie appeal).
I've used Opera Mini under jBed and this native implementation works about the same, minus the little (and I mean little) annoyances. It's something I'd set as my system default browser if I could figure that trick out. I particularly like that Opera Mini supports Opera Link, as I have a tendency to reflash the ROM on my phone at least twice a month.
Identical interface to Opera 10 B3, only wow! what a difference in speed.
Someone help me out with the difference between Mini5's server side rendering and what Opera Turbo is supposed to be doing? Not the same? Either way, Mini is delivering pages much faster for me, probably replaces Opera 10 day to day for my uses...
I'm not seeing a compelling reason why it wouldn't, all the features seem identical (tabs, downloads, logins, etc) except one delivers websites faster. (aside from privacy concerns, which I don't have any, if I'm logging into my bank account I'll just switch over to Opera 10 for paranoia, but that's not my everyday use)
Opera Mini renders everything on Opera's servers and sends the rendered page as a compact OBML stream to your phone. The OBML stream uses very little processing power to display on your phone's screen.
Opera Turbo on Opera Mobile acts as a "compression server" for images and maybe HTML files (too lazy to look it up). Your phone still has to render the page and request each component individually (unlike Opera Mini).
Opera Turbo will reduce the amount of data that your phone needs to receive but does not speed up the rendering process.
Did anyone give this a try before posting your comments?
This browser works AWESOME. Its speedy and works better than the default 9.5 that came with my TP2
cant say enough of this browers.
AWESOME!!! It is so much faster than Opera Mini and uses far less power as well (less data and server-side rendering)!
One thing I hated about Opera Mini was having to run it on JBed which I found to be flaky at best. Now with Opera Mini as a native app, I don't think I'll be using Opera Mobile that often in the future.
If only I had Opera Mini on my iPod Touch :)
Mini has always been faster than Mobile, but this version comes with extreme memory usage. It takes four megs of RAM at startup, four times as much as Mobile. i browsed a couple of forums for a few mintues and usage went up to 20 megs! Granted, there were some large images on the page, but that's unacceptable to me.
BUGGY!!! mobile site redirects with mobile
view off (whats so hard about including a
user-agent switcher like in opera 8.6x?). and
when typing with touch screen the cursor
moves back to the begining of the line,they
cant seem to get either of these right tho i like how fast and light it is.