I am in my hometown for last two weeks. Since it is a small town so there is neither broadband nor 3G services. So I have to totally depend on my mobile for internet. I am using Opera Mini 6 browser in my Nokia N8. It has got many advantages as compared to default browser of Nokia or other browsers. So here I am with my latest review on Opera Mini 6.
Opera Mini is a web browser designed primarily for mobile phones, smartphones and PDAs. As per the record, Opera Mini is the world’s most used mobile browser with more than 113.5 million users (in May 2011).
Functionality
Firstly I want to discuss the technical part of this browser. Though it is not necessary in this review but it will give a clear insight about the differences between other browsers and Opera Mini.
When a user browses the web using Opera Mini, the request is sent via the GPRS to one of the Opera Software Company's proxy servers, which retrieves the web page, processes and compresses it, and sends it back to the user's mobile phone.
The pre-processing speeds up data transfer by two to three times, reduce the amount of data transferred, and increase the compatibility with web pages not designed for mobile phones. Also, when a connection is established with the Opera’s proxy servers, it keeps open and re-uses as required that further improves transfer speed.
If a particular language/ font are not supported by a mobile, Opera Mini sends that content in bitmap image form.
The Opera Software Company maintains over 100 proxy servers to handle Opera Mini traffic.
Description
The Opera Mini 6 has got address bar, Google search bar, back and forward button, refresh/ stop button, tabbing option and Opera setting button on its homepage. We have option of saving 9 webpages in speed dials and remaining pages as bookmarks.
There is option as to whether we want images to be loaded or not. Even image quality can be chosen as low, medium or high.
There are shortcut keys and touchscreen control that saves time and effort. There is an option of kinetic scrolling for long pages. It has full HTML internet access support.
Features
1. Tabbed Browsing- Tab switching option is there just like other browsers available for PCs. Several pages can be opened at the same time. On touchscreen devices, visual tabs even allow us to see a preview of the open pages, just like in Windows 7.
2. Speed Dial- It launches our favorite websites with a single click. The favorite webpages (maximum 9) are visually laid out on screen in speed dial, and load each with quick tap.
3. Easy Navigation with full screen option- It provides easy navigation with maximum efficiency on both touchscreen and keypad devices. It displays complete webpages, just like on our computer, and is fully standards compliant. Address bar and toolbars disappear until they are needed, allowing to see more of the page we are viewing. It smartly fits webpages as per our screen.
4. Accelerometer Support- Comfortably adjusts to our needs by switching between portrait and landscape mode.
5. Font Size Variation- It lets us adjust the font size for easier reading. There are three options of font- small, medium and large.
6. Faster- The streamlined rendering engine and server side compression allows the browser to load webpages much more quickly than other mobile phone browsers.
7. Cost efficient- It uses only a tenth of the bandwidth of other browsers, and compress webpages by up to 90%. It saves money on data charges as it reduces data usages substantially.
8. Easy synchronization and Backup- It synchronizes the links with desktop PC, using opera link. It backup our bookmarks, speed dials and search engines to my opera, and keep them synchronized between different phones or with opera browser on our PCs.
9. Zooming- On touchscreen devices there is option of pinch to zoom if the phone supports multitouch; otherwise double tap zoom.
10. Predictive Text Input- We can effortlessly enter addresses because of sophisticated URL auto completion.
11. Virtual Keyboard- The browser has its own QWERTY keypad (optional) for typing and editing the text. We can set it for entering address only, or always/ never.
12. History- Bookmarks and previously visited addresses appear in a list as we type an address. Visited pages are grouped by date so one can easily find a site by the day of viewing it.
13. Sharing Option- It has option of sharing a link over social websites like Facebook, Twitter etc. It is very useful feature if we want to share the link of any DP/ review on MS over Facebook.
14. Search- There is ‘Find in Page’ option by which we can save time for unnecessary searching words or phrases in large webpages.
15. Download feature- Most advanced download manager available for mobile phone. Start downloading files and keep track of their progress. Pause and resume when necessary.
16. Save page feature- There is an option of saving the webpage if we would like to keep it for future reference. We can access it anytime later without having to wait for it to download- even without internet connection.
17. Privacy Management- It has got its password manager that can remember passwords for us. It has feature to accept cookies. We can clear history, passwords and cookies in one single click.
Few Negatives
The browser does not have flash support. It is mostly a positive factor as it prevents unnecessary data transfer in the form of advertisements.
The Opera’s virtual keyboard is very cramped and does not provide feasibility in moving the cursor. But we always can use our default keypad in case of problem.
There is no Opera Mini version for latest Windows based mobile phones.
Zooming is limited in this browser, but is acceptable as it is just a Mini version.
Support
The Opera browser support Java phones, iOS (for Apple phones), Android, Symbian/ S60, Blackberry, Windows Mobile 5.1.
It has support for 96 languages in user interface.
Bottomline
Let us start with its performance regarding opening of various sites. It took 30.9sec to open Mouthshut homepage, 7.39sec for Google, 10.00sec for Facebook and 31.61sec for IRCTC homepage (in GPRS connection). The performance is really awesome considering the heavy graphics on Mouthshut and IRCTC. It is further enhanced when used in 3G. I have never seen such a fast performance on any other mobile browser. Amazingly it costs less than Re.1 using BSNL (on my Nokia N8) for browsing Mouthshut for all the necessary updates.
The browser can be downloaded free from m.opera.com. I would recommend it for people who travel a lot and depend on their mobile phones for basic surfing needs. There is always an option of Opera Mobile 11 if we need to do more advance browsing.
I would suggest trying it once and you will surely feel the difference. It is way faster than other browsers and will never burn a hole on exorbitant data charges.
