This week Apple has dominated the headlines with it’s iPhone. It’s an MP3 player; a phone and a mobile web device and, for as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted one. Not because of the phone (I have one) or even the MP3 player (who needs one when you’ve got one already), but because it can browse the web!
Since the release I’ve heard nothing but good about Safari on the iPhone, but I have heard that Edge is terrible and it takes up to 3 minutes for some sites to load.
What’s the solution? A mobile-platform independent browser than can be run across any type of wireless network. In steps Opera Mini.
The problem I’ve had with Opera Mini is the lack of a mouse for scrolling and the so so rendering, but that seems to be a thing of the past. The new Opera Mini 4 Beta is a huge step forward in platform-independent browsing.
New features include:
- Rendering of web pages in full. Not some silly optimized mobile version
- Zooming into text
- Dynamically changing font-size
- A mouse
- Scrolling
- Quick loading
Okay, so Opera Mini has always been quick, but it is still quicker than any other mobile browser I’ve tried, probably because it’s not a stripped down version of some bigger browser.
My phone is touch screen with no keypad, but that doesn’t stop me using Opera Mini, in fact, it makes it ten times better. I can drag my finger up and down to navigate through the page; touch to zoom in; and whole heap of other stuff that made me want an iPhone.
It’s important to note that Opera Mini is still in development and there may be new features coming and improved stability - even though I’ve had few problems.