Opera Mini
January 24, 2006 8:23 AM   Subscribe

Opera Mini is now available worldwide, for free. A quality web browser for your Java enabled cellphone.
posted by mr.marx (34 comments total)
 
sweet, thanks for this. cingular has the most awful setup, and this works much much better.
posted by moonbird at 8:41 AM on January 24, 2006


Opera Mini
posted by Shfishp at 8:44 AM on January 24, 2006


Watch out, the demo linked at the top of that page has *awful* music.
posted by smackfu at 8:49 AM on January 24, 2006


Ironically, this crashes my firefox...
posted by hnnrs at 8:54 AM on January 24, 2006


Shfishp: could you hand me a napkin so I can wipe off my monitor from the coffee I just spit out in a burst of laughter...?
posted by twsf at 8:55 AM on January 24, 2006


*hands twsf a napkin*

I thought people might enjoy that...
posted by Shfishp at 9:01 AM on January 24, 2006


I've been playing, and it's gorgeously silly.
posted by alloneword at 9:03 AM on January 24, 2006


product page sans flash.
posted by mr.marx at 9:09 AM on January 24, 2006


Fantastic! Until I get a phone with the much talked about Netfront browser pre-installed, Opera is the way to go.
posted by riffola at 9:16 AM on January 24, 2006


Is there a desktop emulator available so I can see how my site looks without using the browser?
posted by ao4047 at 9:19 AM on January 24, 2006


I am really concerned about opera staying in business now. I thought they were making all their money with the cell phone market. but now it is free?
posted by bigmusic at 9:20 AM on January 24, 2006


Is there a desktop emulator available so I can see how my site looks without using the browser?

Download their desktop web browser, select View->Small Screen, and it should probably give you an approximation of how websites would look using Opera Mini.
posted by gyc at 9:25 AM on January 24, 2006


Don't worry, bigmusic, they'll make it up in volume.
posted by notbuddha at 9:25 AM on January 24, 2006


Do not try on RIM devices. Works marginally, but very, very slow!
posted by kingpixel at 9:30 AM on January 24, 2006


Doesn't work on Nextel's Motorola i-Series phones. =(
posted by elafint at 9:43 AM on January 24, 2006


Nice. Works on my Nokia 6600, so I can view the regular Gmail page. Sadly Mobile Gmail doesn't seem to want to play nice with this phone, using any browser. I'd do it all via POP, but the 6600 can't do IMAP - so I can send mail via Gmail using SMTP, but can't receive using POP3. Grr.

It's not the prettiest solution, but it'll make my life somewhat easier.
posted by coach_mcguirk at 9:54 AM on January 24, 2006


I've been using this for a while on my SonyEricsson P910i.
It works well, not only is it faster than the it's bigger brother that I have installed but saves a considerable amount of bandwidth and therefore cash!
posted by darksmiler at 9:55 AM on January 24, 2006


Weird, I thought it had been free all along. Maybe that was just the Series 60 version?

Whatever, it's a corking browser (and absolutely pisses on NetFront, riffola, in my experience at least).
posted by jack_mo at 10:01 AM on January 24, 2006


Oh, I didn't know NetFront wasn't that good. The forthcoming Sony Ericsson phones will use NetFront as it handles RSS too, I think. I guess then Opera is the best way to go.

Right now I have the K750i, and I was using the older version of Opera mini, the newer version is much nicer.
posted by riffola at 10:03 AM on January 24, 2006


Can't get it to work on my razr, even though i've got GPRS data service on tmobile...

Suck.
posted by Freen at 10:18 AM on January 24, 2006


coach_mcguirk, you can get the normal Opera to work on a 6600. I'm not sure if it still costs, but it was well worth it for me a year ago on the same phone. I have yet to run Opera Mini on it.
posted by mikeh at 10:35 AM on January 24, 2006


I am really concerned about opera staying in business now. I thought they were making all their money with the cell phone market. but now it is free?

Opera Mobile, a different product than Opera Mini, still costs money.
posted by gyc at 10:43 AM on January 24, 2006


Can't get it to work on my razr, even though i've got GPRS data service on tmobile...

Suck.


Yeah, T-Mobile restricts some things to make you pay big money for their internet plans. If you're really adventurous, you can find out on places like HowardForums how to flash your RAZR to bypass the T-Mobile restrictions.
posted by gyc at 10:45 AM on January 24, 2006


I've been using it for a few days on my Samsung A900, and it's pretty awesome. I think the thing that I like most about it is how easy it makes using Backpack and Tada Lists from anywhere. The only thing that's a little annoying is that some sites that have WAP formatted version decide which one to show based on the browser type and with Opera Mini they serve you the full thing instead of the WAP version. It's not too much of a problem since Opera Mini can usually make the full version readable, but sometimes you'd still rather have the WAP version since it's cleaner. Other than that, I've found that it seems to throw up on some kind of XML parsing error when I try to view the mobile formatted Gmail page, which the broswer that the phone ships with is able to handle just fine.
posted by shinji_ikari at 10:51 AM on January 24, 2006


I've just installed it on my Sony Ericsson k700i and it's quite fast. It also makes much better use of screen space than the built in wap browser, which wasted a lot at the top and bottom for standard icon displays.

The small font size option in settings is hard on the eyes, but I feel like it's worth it to have to scroll less.
posted by tiamat at 12:05 PM on January 24, 2006


It just about works on a Nokia 9500 - it's not a native app though so there are some quirks. Top function button performs the left-hand option, bottom function button performs the right-hand option. The second button performs a link-click. Third doesn't seem to do anything. It's also annoying having to constantly give it permission to access the internet - stupid Java sandbox. There's probably a way to turn this off in the Java security settings.

That said, there's already an (older) version of Opera Mobile installed on it - hope that Opera/Nokia will update this in the future...
posted by blag at 12:35 PM on January 24, 2006


I'm guessing this uses some sort of proxy?
posted by blag at 12:37 PM on January 24, 2006


yes
"Instead of requiring the phone to process Web pages, it uses a remote server to pre-process the page before sending it to the phone."
(from the product page)
posted by mr.marx at 1:36 PM on January 24, 2006


Works nicely on my Cingular RAZR.
posted by nicwolff at 2:37 PM on January 24, 2006


Will this work on my Axim pocket pc? Because pocket explorer is teh suck.
posted by LarryC at 2:52 PM on January 24, 2006


I just installed it on my cingular razr and it seems to work fine. Beats the hell out of the default one there was.
posted by Phantomx at 3:07 PM on January 24, 2006


LarryC writes 'Will this work on my Axim pocket pc? Because pocket explorer is teh suck.'

I don't think so, unfortunately - at least not without some extra work. This is a Java application - in order for it to run, your Axim needs to be able to run Java apps and I don't think Windows Mobile does this as standard. Also, this software was designed for the very small screens found on mobile phones, not the higher-resolution screens on PDAs.

There is a version of Opera designed specifically for PocketPC - Opera for Windows Mobile Pocket PC - but it's commercial software. There's a 45 day trial available.
posted by blag at 4:22 PM on January 24, 2006


Do not try on RIM devices. Works marginally, but very, very slow!

Agreed. "Marginally" seems like a euphemism here. Supposedly there is a low-memory version, but I can't seem to get it from mini.opera.com
posted by mrgrimm at 4:26 PM on January 24, 2006


What it does, it does nicely - but you can't even save images! Unless someone wants to correct me.
posted by teleskiving at 4:09 AM on January 26, 2006


« Older Screw Miners We Need Coal   |   Whole Foods? Yes! Suburban Sprawl? Oh Yeah! Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments