Not too long ago, Opera announced that their premier web browser, Opera Mobile, had gone up to version 10… but there was a bit of an annoyance for all us WinMo users, because that new version was only available on Symbian phones.
Well, not any more! Yup, Opera Mobile 10 has now gone into beta version for Windows Mobile phones and so, I have now downloaded it, and can finally tell you exactly what it’s like.
It’s Opera Mini. That’s what it is. It really, genuinely is, it’s Opera Mini. They’ve taken Opera Mobile, and changed it so that it looks like Opera Mini. I was a bit wary of that, at first, because I’d said, on many occasions, that Opera Mini 5, although it now looked so much prettier than previous versions of the Java-based browser, didn’t seem to zoom in as far onto the page as Opera Mobile did. Happily, I’m pleased to say, Opera Mobile does seem to zoom in further than Mini did, but I am saddened to report that Opera Mobile now doesn’t have the multiple zoom levels that it used to have (or if it does, I can’t find them).
One other niggling little issue I have with Opera Mobile 10 is how you zoom out on a page. Y’see, in previous versions, you would double tap to zoom in, and then double tap again to zoom out. Now, the zoom out button is the same as the back button, as it is in Mini. Not a huge issue, though, and I reckon it’s just me needing to get used to it.
However, there’s one very cool new feature: single tap zooming. When you’re zoomed out on a page, you don’t need to double tap to zoom in. Just tap on the bit you’re interested in and it flies down to that particular bit. I likes that.
So, yes, there are a couple of issues with it, although I’m going to say right now that I think they’re only because I’m not used to using it. And the good stuff far outweighs those complaints. For example, it is fast. Really fast. No, faster than that. I mean fast, especially with the Turbo feature turned on. It doesn’t quite scroll around pages as quickly as version 9.7, but (and it’s a very positive but), you don’t get that annoying checkerboard pattern appearing when you’re scrolling and it’s not loaded that bit of page yet.
So all in all, does Opera Mobile 10 rock? Well, quite frankly, yes. It’ll take me a little bit of time to get used to it, after using version 9.7, but the speed improvements are immense, and it looks a lot prettier.
I’m dying to try it on something with a Snapdragon chip in, like the HTC HD2, as well, because I reckon it might go fast enough to make the screen explode…
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