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Bolt vs Opera Mini: Battle of the Browsers
Prasad Naik, Jun 14, 2009 1000 hrs ISTFind out which one is better
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When browsing I noticed that unlike Opera Mini, even when you set the image size as low quality, it does not shrink the size of the images. The images are of the same size with the page dimensions and layout maintained but you can see the compression artefacts which are not so clear on Opera Mini. Bolt also does not have the smooth sliding animations of the Opera Mini. This will be a boon for those who do not have a phone with a powerful processor to generate those animations, but I would have preferred if it had an option like Opera Mini to disable them instead of not having them at all.
Bolt also underlines the numbers on the web page in green which can then be clicked to dial them on your phone and better yet, it gives you the option to send an SMS to that number as well, something that Mini does not do. It also supports saving of entire pages on to the phone memory, which can then be used for viewing offline. Images on the page can also be saved.
Unfortunately, when it comes to downloading files, Bolt does not have a download manager of its own and instead relies on the built-in web browser of the phone it is installed on. So when you click on a download link the main web browser opens and the download starts from there. If you are using a phone that supports minimised Java application then Bolt goes into background while the download continues.
However you run into problems if you download something that the built-in browser does not support. Like for example the S60 browser only supports downloading those files that it supports natively, which means it cannot download .exe files. So if you are using Bolt on an S60 phone then you won't be able to download any .exe files, which, however, you can using Opera Mini.
Bolt also claims to support flash videos. However it is not what you might think it is. Unlike the SkyFire, videos don't exactly load in the browser window itself. The browser finds a low quality 3GP version of the video and then opens it in the built-in browser of the phone. This only works for YouTube by the way and not for all sites with flash videos.
The fonts on the Bolt don't look all that great. Firstly they are all small. Secondly they all look the same, whether it is in bold or in italics or of a bigger size. Opera Mini displays fonts far better and maintains the original style. Another thing I noticed is that if you click a link and then you click another one, the browser ignores the second one, even if you want to go to that particular one. In Mini you would go to the second link instead.
Page layout is another thing that is good on the Bolt. I did not notice any content overlapping on Bolt, whereas it is common to see it on Opera Mini. The browser also manages text layout very well on the pages. Pages look very similar to the way they look on the PC screen.
Final words
Bolt is still in its beta phase and it already shows a lot of promise. When compared to Opera Mini it beats it in certain areas such as page layout and arrangement of text, etc. But apart from that I did not find many reasons to switch over to Bolt from Mini. Mini still has a smaller download size, faster page loading and a built-in download manager that does not rely on the built-in browser. Pages, especially fonts, look better on the Mini. As of now, I think Mini is the better of the two and Bolt will need a lot more than what it offers right now to beat the best in the business.
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Discussion Board
(11) Comments
Prajjwal
,Lucknow, on May 16, 2011 04:00 PM
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OperaFan
,Delhi, on Jul 07, 2009 05:43 PM
Aditya Mundra
,Jodhpur, on Jun 16, 2009 02:04 PM
Prateek
,New Delhi, on Jun 15, 2009 08:42 AM
T.Raguveeradaya
,Thiruppullani, on Jun 14, 2009 11:56 AM
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