The World’s favorite mobile browser, now on Android

Opera has now released its Mini 5 beta for the Android platform. Earlier, it had its Mini 4 for this platform but now it has come out with this bigger and better version which includes many new features over the Mini 4. After spending some time with the new browser, we bring you this hands-on report.

The new browser is identical to the one that we have seen on the Java platform. The startup screen has the URL field and the Search field on the top. Surprisingly, there was no option to change the search engine in the Android version and Google was the default and only option. Also, we could not add extra search fields from other sites. This, we thought, was a bit of an undersight for the company and just because it is on Android, it doesn’t mean it has to be just Google search.

Below, you can see an option to ‘Tell a friend’. With this feature, you can inform someone about the availability of this browser by entering their name and email ID. You can remove this option from the Settings menu though. Below that option are the nine Speed Dial buttons. Quickly tapping them takes you to that site. You can edit them and add your favorite sites for quick access.

Opera Mini 5 beta for Android uses the new tabbed browsing feature and the implementation of the tabs is possibly the best on any mobile browser till date. Pressing the Tab button brings up the tab tray and you can see the currently open tabs and add some of your own.

Press the Settings button and you see most of which you would on any other version of Opera Mini 5 beta. There are a few omissions though. We did not find any option to use Opera’s own QWERTY keyboard which the company debuted in the Mini 5 beta on the Java platform. But that’s okay as it was pretty horrible to use, thanks to its small keys. There was also no option to manually set the orientation and the Android version would automatically adjust the UI orientation, according to the way the phone was held, with the help of the accelerometer.

We observed that the Opera Mini 5 beta for Android perfectly scales to the resolution of the phone it is installed on. This new beta is unlike the older Mini 4.2 which used to stretch to fit to the higher resolution display of phones with 480 x 800 resolution. The new Opera Mini 5 beta also comes with the Opera Link feature, which lets you import and sync all your bookmarks on the Opera browser on your PC to the mobile browser.

The performance of the browser is just as good as before. The page loading speed is the best amongst all the mobile browser and even on slower GPRS connection Opera Mini 5 beta for Android would load pages at a lighting fast pace, thanks to the compression technology that Opera uses. The page that you request by entering the URL or clicking a link is first opened at Opera’s servers and then compressed and sent to your phone. Your browser then just displays the page, which is the reason why it seems all so fast. This compression of data also means that Opera Mini consumes the least amount of data as compared to other browsers (so lower Internet bills on your phone), while giving you almost the same experience.

Notice how I used the word, almost there? That’s because this method of page loading has its disadvantages. First of all, none of the animations play on the page and appear as static images. Certain items that would normally require you to hover over them to display more options, such as the category lists on top of our Techtree page, do not work. Also, Opera Mini lacks Flash support, so you cannot visit any of the Flash sites, nor watch YouTube videos in your browser.

When the page first loads on Opera Mini 5 beta, it shows the complete page on the screen. After that, you have to click on it to zoom into the content. You can only zoom in once and if you still cannot read the text properly then you would have to go into the settings and increase the text zoom setting. This would cause the browser to reload the page and then the setting would be applied to all the subsequent pages that you load.

The browser automatically fits the text to the width of the screen. However, this sometimes causes the page formatting to go for a toss. In fact, Opera Mini 5 beta fares badly as compared to other mobile browsers for accuracy of the page layout and more often than not, your pages won’t look the way it looks on your PC (or even in the built-in Android browser).

Opera Mini 5 beta for Android comes with a full fledged download manager where you can manage all your downloads. It also allows you to save web pages for offline viewing.

One thing that annoyed me a bit was that the Opera Mini 5 beta for Android did not have an exit option. You just press the Home key to minimize the browser but it would continue to run in the background, thus consuming memory. And since Android does not have a task manager, the only way to close it would be to restart the phone.

Still, overall, we are pleased with the new Opera Mini 5 beta for Android. If you want faster performance than the built-in Android browser and don’t care much about Flash, page layout accuracy or animations, then we would recommend downloading Opera Mini 5 beta from the Android Market right now and use it instead. After all, it is completely free, so you have nothing to lose.

Resource:

http://www.techtree.com/India/Reviews/Opera_Mini_5_beta_for_Android_Hands-on/551-109839-597.html