Peter Sbarski20 June 2007, 12:34 AM
The makers of the popular Opera Mini browser for mobile phones have released a major new upgrade, Dimension, which they're promising will offer iPhone-like browsing on almost any mobile.
 Opera Mini vs iPhone's Safari: free vs expensive, available now vs available in Australia in 2008 |
Opera Software, the maker of the most underrated web browser known to mankind, has unveiled a new beta version of its flagship software for mobile devices, and it is pitching it directly at the Apple iPhone's inbuilt Safari browser.
Opera Mini 4 Beta ("Dimension") is available to download from http://www.operamini.com/beta/ for most mobile phones including Palm and Blackberry devices.
 apcmag.com in Opera's Dimension Simulator |
The Beta will not overwrite existing installations of Opera Mini making it easy to test and uninstall.
Opera Software claims a number of cool features that will rock your world (although some of them don't seem to be that new):
1) PC-style browsing: Dimension gives a full overview of the page just like a PC browser.
2) Jump to it: Opera Mini automatically suggests a place to begin reading so you don't have to scroll endlessly through navigation links that often appear at the top of mobile-rendered webpages.
3) Dynamic scrolling: the browser changes the size of the text and images to assist navigation without unnecessary scrolling.
4) Point to it: virtual mouse makes it easy to scroll in all four directions.
 Dimension Fit-to-Width View |
5) Navigate the page: hitting 2, 4, 6 and 8 scrolls up, left, right and down and pressing 5, zooms in and out.
6) Performance: apparently the browser is much faster than other "anonymous" mobile browsers.
7) Fit to width: changes the page into a vertical column negating the need to scroll horizontally.
8) And more... Opera Software promises to unveil more "crazy stuff" shortly.
There is a demo video of the browser in action here and an Opera Mini 4 beta simulator here (go ahead... try it in its entire small screen glory).
Comments from Opera's forum are mixed (remember, though, this version is only a beta.)
Vox Populi
"RSS Support, i.e subscribing to feeds as is possible with Opera Mini 3.1, is not included in this beta of Opera Mini Dimension."
Source: http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=193733
"Boy, I sure hope Opera scraps this. I'm disappointed with all the hype over a novelty feature that I'll never use. Who will use this? The scrolling is lame and the fit to screen is now unusable."
"I love the new beta, you get so much better understanding of the site layout with the overview."
Source: http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=193743
"Blackberry 8800 on Optus network, browser installed fine but on first launch the browser tries to do some diagnostics on the connectivity and error: "Failed to connect to the network" is displayed."
Source: http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=193748
"the navigation is smoother and almost I don't have connection errors, but the images look all distorted, even I activated the higher image quality, but nothing. if i stop the page without completely loading it, the images are just color frames. my cell is a sony ericsson k310."
 Acid2 Test Rendering in Opera Mini 4 Simulator |
"Its working perfect on my SE W700i"
"This will most certainly rival the iphone's browser, for not only is it free, but it works on just about every phone. The new mouse feature is great and if I'm not mistaking the first on a mobile phone."
"I like the new highlight around selected items. The dark blue sites that made the old nearly invisible are no longer confusing."
"I have a Nokia 6280, Opera Mini 4 is loading but after performing the network test it says "Failed to connect to the Internet", and the only option is to exit."
"Now I am one of the proud users of Opera Dimension :-)"
"I can see the potential for this browser. Please keep pitching it to the iPhone, and show the world you can do exactly the same (and better!) on any phone with Opera Mini. And Opera Mini even reduces the bandwidth usage, plus one-handed browsing is a breeze, which you cannot say of the iPhone."
Source: http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=193720
Final Thoughts
So, it seems that although Dimension has a few teething problems the overall reaction is positive.
Obviously Opera Software will continue to improve it so in the end it may turn out to be a very snappy little browser.
Some people are beginning to make comparisons to iPhone's Safari and although we haven't used either there is a strong possibility that Opera's product will be better.
At the very least it will be a more mature, more refined, more capable offering.
A lot of people will rave about iPhone's browsing capabilities but - mark my words -- it will be the overall "iPhone experience" rather than the actual browser that will shape their opinions.
In any case we wish to congratulate Opera on their beta release and say that we eagerly await the final version.
One Last Thing...
If you have a few minutes to spare check out Opera's spoof of the famous Apple's ads here.
Related stories