Opera’s web browser has been ported to both PocketPC and Series 60 platforms – and has received rave reviews by analysts. Palm OS users have to stick to Opera Mini so far; Opera’s current beta of Opera Mini 4 is said to be promising! But can it stack up in a TamsPalm review?
After installing the program, it starts a “network diagnosis” that identifies the available network connection methods(no idea whats that for). Network diagnosis takes approximately 20 seconds on a Palm TX and occurs only once:
Once network diagnosis is complete, Opera Mini shows you a page with details about the new features. The bottom of this page also contains the license agreement, which must be accepted by clicking on the Accept button:
Opera Mini has a start page that shows a few bookmarks and the last visited page. URL’s get entered into the top text field, entering a search term into the field below it allows you to access Yahoo search results directly:
By default, Opera Mini 4 opens web pages in a view mode similar to Web Pro’s “Mini View”. Mini view shows the whole width of the page in a down-scaled fashion:
Clicking on a part of the web site then opens it in “view mode”:
Both view and mini modes can be controlled via stylus or a “mini mouse” which is controlled via the 5way nav. For me, the mini mouse never really worked, as hitting a link was extremely difficult due to “overshoot”. Stylus control worked flawlessly though.
TamsPalm has reviewed Opera Mini v2 some time ago. Logging into Google AdSense still works, and all “weak points” have been eliminated.
Tamoggemon’s classic product pages now get displayed properly(aka with tabs) in view mode. However, the mini view of www.palmbinaryclock.com looked quite strange:
Tables finally get rendered properly, too:
Opera Mini 4 even supports the TamsPalm shoutbox “iframe” – many mobile web browsers don’t manage to accomplish this:
For me, Opera Mini 4 was pretty stable. The program crashed once and displayed a few errors like the one below(it continued working though). The following memory settings were used while reviewing on a Palm TX:
This review focuses on the “Palm” version of Opera Mini 4 Beta. It was downloaded to a Palm TX from Opera’s web site at 1:50am austrian time. It identifies itself as v4.0.846320070619; internet connection was provided via a WiFi router.
Overall, it’s difficult not to like this 260k Java freeware. It makes a pretty fast browser with really good page rendering and very good HTML support – and it also renders pages in a very usable fashion. While a smaller font would have been desirable; the program does and excellent job overall…for me, it is a must-have! Congratulations to Opera for finally giving the Palm OS a really usable web browser!
Related posts:
All German readers may be interested in our review on TamsPalm.de:
http://tamspalm.pytalhost.eu/2007/06/19/opera-mini-4-ein-neuer-browser-fuer-palm-os/
it’s told that Opera mini is slower than Universe (at least in beta state).
Hi,
for me, Universe has been less useful than Opera Mini when I last tested Universe(about 2 months ago).
If anyone can provide me with a beta of Universe, I will gladly review it!
Best regards
Tam Hanna
There will be a new Universe beta soon. But at the moment there are no news. So keep an eye on the blog:
http://blog.openmobl.com/
How did you get it to work without crashing constantly? I absolutely loved it, but couldn’t get it to work, I used the exact same Java settings. You can see a few more opinions (mostly mine) here http://www.1src.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129172
I used Opera Mini 4 beta for a day.
It was very slow. Surprisingly the navigation was the slowest. Scrolling from top to bottom of a page seemed to take much longer than loading the page.
It also uses Java (Palm’s JavaVM is buggy).
I like where it is going, but until they work out everything to be done client side… Basically it is just a server version of Opera 9 with a client that receives a special byte-coded page that is pre laid out.
Hi,
for me, the whole idea of doing all the web rendering on the client is not nececarily the best idea anymore.
Palm.net worked lovely with the proxy, and why shouldnt Opera,.. go the same route if it allows clients to save power and run longer e be faster.
Last but not least, it also kills piracy for good…
Best regards
Tam Hanna