Opera 9.7 Beta Brings Turbo Mode To Windows Mobile Phones
Windows Mobile: Opera’s released an early, partially-featured beta of its Mobile browser that brings the server-side browsing speed-ups of Opera Turbo to touchscreen phones.
Our phone-happy compatriots at Gizmodo give the Turbo feature of Opera Mobile 9.7 Beta a qualified thumbs up, noting that it brings considerable reduction to web page load speeds with “not that bad” image compression. Still, while Turbo is on, the browser itself gets a bit flakier. Opera itself notes in release notes that downloads just won’t work with Turbo enabled, and fans of Opera’s Widgets have to turn off Turbo when switching over to them.
Google Gears functionality and full Flash support aren’t in this beta either, but are expected. You can check out what’s already happening in Opera Mobile in this explainer video:
Opera Mobile is a free download for Windows Mobile 5/6 phones powered by touch screens. Be sure to read the release notes at the link below, as keyboard input and other issues have been noted with certain phones.
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@rawfan: 9.5 = free. 9.7 = free. Opera Mini = free.
Alex Richards
rawfan, The new version of Opera Mobile will more then likely be completely free. And they beta versions are certainly free.
GldRush98
@lifehacker: Opera Mobile is NOT free. The beta might be free for now. But generally the free Version does cost money.
On a sidenote: If you ever bought Opera (in the days it was payware) you can still use the serial with current Opera Mobile versions.
rawfan
@Jake Champion: Good suggestion but the N97 doesn't do Divx/Xvid playback natively, and while there are a few applications out there which take care of this, even an official Divx one I wonder how good their playback would be. As last time I used a software solution on a Symbain S60 phone the playback was terrible but maybe I'm still judging apps from a 5 year old software decoded experience.
Also it uses the vastly inferior dual LED instead of Xenon for a flash which spoils its great camera but honestly its a credit to still see one.
does this only compress images, or can it also render javascript-generated code server-side. that would be really impressive.
SamburgerHandwich
@Bert Bronaugh: wrong link sorry, wheres the edit button aha
[www.gsmarena.com]
Jake Champion
@[www.gsmarena.com]
Jake Champion
@[www.skyfire.com]
I'm stuck with Opera Mini on My Nokia 6300 currently but I'm looking into a smartphone its just finding one that does all my tasks.(Any suggestions from the LH community are welcome)
Text+Calls+Email logically
Web browser with full flash(not flash lite)+Java+Gears support
Divx+Xvid playback
MP3 player and possibility to use normal headphones
Camera with Autofocus+Xenon flash+Optical Zoom
VGA captive touchscreen
Slide out keyboard or pad at least
GPS
3G+Wifi+Bluetooth
Removable memory card storage
Bert, that's what Opera Mini is already...
I just got done playing with the 9.7 beta and it's pretty nice. Runs slightly faster then Opera 9.5 on my Fuze.
The Opera Turbo feature is obviously still very beta, but once they get it perfected, it'll be a very cool feature. It was loading up pages lightning fast when I was testing.
It'll also be nicer when they make the text re-flowing and the touch-wheel zoom work in 9.7 as it does in 9.5
GldRush98
Nice. Will something like this come to Java-enabled phones? I've got a Katana DLX with Opera Mini.
Bert Bronaugh