• Opera Mini 5 Arrives: Looks and Feels Awesome

    Opera Mini 5 Arrives: Looks and Feels Awesome

    Rahul Srinivas, Sep 16, 2009 1715 hrs IST

    A worthy upgrade from version 4.2

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A year after the arrival of Opera Mini 4, it is now time to graduate to the next version of Opera Mini, arguably the worlds most widely used Mobile Browser.


The Beta version of Opera Mini 5 has just been released, and as always, we take close look at the browser. The browser has been released at a time when quite a few contenders have been at Opera heels to gain a foothold in the fiercely competitive mobile browser market. The players apart from Opera include Skyfire, Bolt and even Mozilla's Fennec. With Opera Mini 5, Opera once again seems all set to retain its position in the mobile browser arena.

Opera Mini 5 takes a giant leap in terms of look and feel with almost nothing that makes it resemble its older brother. The icons, the buttons and almost every element of the browser sports a new, fresher, rounded look - compared to the more "business like" approach of its older versions. Even the icons have been given a facelift. And guess what, the changes here are not just cosmetic. Under the hood, Opera Mini now gets some real firepower - tabbed browsing included. Perhaps the most sought after feature for the browser ever since its inception back in 2005. So, what's new? Lots In fact! Let's take a look.




The UI




The first thing you'd notice about the Opera Mini 5, right from the installation procedure, is the changed look and feel of the browser. The white installation window is now black and there is a "new" Opera logo as well. Post installation you get a welcome screen that mimics the look of the Opera Mini's desktop cousin, the Opera 10, complete with speed dials that you can customize according to your browsing habits. Depending on the kind of device you are using, Opera will adjust itself and optimize its looks to suit your device.

Most of the screenshots you see here are on an Omnia HD and for the same reason some things might not look familiar for those using a normal "keypad" enabled phone. The interface is snappy and responds immediately to your commands. For touch devices, there is a slight resemblance to the Apple and Android browsers with buttons being easily clickable. The URL text entry field is STILL separate from the search box - but they are in the same line instead of being atop each other as in the previous version. A major change we found in the UI is that entering URLs is a lot easier now and clicking a text entry field doesn't lead you to a page where you enter your text and hit OK to come back to the page. In fact, Opera Mini uses a QWERTY keypad of its own on full touchscreen devices (which works quite decently)




 



 




 

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Related Links
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Opera Mini 5 Internet browser Mobile Browser Skyfire Bolt Fennec Opera Mini 4



Discussion Board
(6) Comments
Dhruvi Tanna
,Mumbai, on Sep 24, 2009 05:14 PM
nice article
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Vidooshak
,BANGALORE, on Sep 23, 2009 03:01 PM
The positivs were covered well in the review. On the Blackberry, some caveats: 1. closing the browser is a 3 click affair -- not good. 2. cannot find how to edit the speed-dials 3. navigation is bit clunky if no touchscreen 4. GUI made very pretty. Comes in the way of navigation at times i am sticking to 4.2 for now
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Vinod Pillai
,Bhubaneswar, on Sep 21, 2009 03:06 PM
Opera 5 mini downloads application/files through the phone browser and hence may support only those downloads which are supported by your mobile phone,unlike opera 4.2 which has inbuild dowloader by which you can dowload those applications/files which are not even supported by phone. Also the problem with rapidshare continues with opera 5 beta the countdown timer never counts down and stays still.
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manram
,mumbai, on Sep 17, 2009 10:11 PM
no sync and where are the feeds
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Arturo T.
,Hayward, CA, on Sep 16, 2009 11:13 PM
I have a Nintendo DSi with Opera browser but does not support video; after navigating the internet you have to flush the temp files... I wish they have an update for that, is not much fun to not being able to play video :(
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David Storey
,Oslo, on Sep 16, 2009 06:51 PM
The 24/100 is how far the server farm gets to on the Acid 3 test before it sends it to the Opera Mini client, not how good the standards support in in Opera Mini. It has the same engine as Opera desktop, so presumably would get to 100/100.
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