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msmobiles.com_robot · Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 16777215

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, we received an exclusive demonstration of Opera 9.5, by far the most popular third party browser for Windows Mobile smartphones. The new version represents a substantial i...

Read more at http://www.msmobiles.com/news.php/7141.html

indiekiduk · Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 198 Location: Glasgow, Scotland

Wow I am impressed that actually looks decent. I like how you can drag anywhere in the page, no scroll bars! yeh about time!
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chaznet · Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 14

While it looks to be a great browser (they'll be getting my credit card info Smile

... it should be noted that the initial portion of the video, showing use of YouTube, doesn't have anything to do with Opera. Clicking a YouTube video link invoked the HTC Media Player and showed the video, something already possible on my HTC Touch using IE. The ability to play YouTube videos with HTC Touch devices has nothing to do with the Opera browser, the demo is misleading...

JNGold · Joined: 27 Oct 2005 Posts: 116

1. The presenter was on HSDPA, not a wifi network as Tadd had mentioned. There was not WiFi connection icon on the top of the screen.

2. The presenter would rather use a stylus on a Touch Cruise, but use his finger on an HTC Touch? Hello? Both devices have the same type of flush screen.

3. Even though Opera may be shipped with along with it, it doesn't mean that the device won't have PIE. Tadd had mentioned that Opera will ship on devices instead of PIE - that has not been the case thusfar.
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PDA Lineage:
Visor, Visor Prism, Casio EM-500, Casio E-200, HP Jornada 568, IPAQ 1910,IPAQ 4150,Ipaq 2750, Imate K-JAM,Treo 750,HTC Touch Cruise,US Touch Diamond,iPhone 3G,iPhone 3GS

adamz · Joined: 28 Oct 2005 Posts: 44

No soft key menus? What functions do the softkey hardware buttons bring up? Looks like no keyboard access for the menus either. Sounds like this will be difficult to use with one-hand and with keyboard devices.

willgill · Joined: 03 Oct 2007 Posts: 5

adamz, I'm current using the leaked version, 9.33. I'm not sure what you mean by hard to use with hardware keyboard. I'm using it on a Touch and it works with the softkeyboard just fine. Well except for the fact that Opera has a long standing issue with keyboards other than the lame default. For instance, using the PocketCM keyboard inputs a space in between characters in input sections on webpages. You can type a URL just fine, but try typing a username/password and it comes out w i l l g i l l

Webpages load pretty fast. Zooming and scrolling work fine. Webpages render pretty accurately. Currently there's no easy way to set the virtual resolution or canvas size. It's preset and you have to dig to change the size. I've used about every browser, Ibis, NetFront, PIE, Opera 8.65, Picsel, but not Skyfire. I signed for it's beta but haven't been accepted and really don't care now. It has security questions with it since Skyfire uses their proxy.

Opera 9.5 is certainly the browser to get. Save your pennies and get your credit card ready.

adamz · Joined: 28 Oct 2005 Posts: 44

Here's my video walkthrough of the beta:
http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=5109

I'll give the final version another chance, but there's still some major usability issues in the GUI. The video explains the problems with the hardware keyboard, but to make a long story short; you HAVE to use the touch screen in order to use the browser. If that decision is in the final, it's pretty dumb because keyboard shortcut navigation is often much more efficient and easy.

Also not being able to sync favorites is a big negative for me.