Opera Mobile 9.5 beta 1

Tag : GPRS PC Card

A massive improvement on Pocket Internet Explorer, and a solid progression from the current version of Opera Mobile, but some will be disappointed by the lack of radical new advances As we exclusively revealed in this month's issue of PC Pro (see issue 167, p14), the proportion of people using their mobile phones to browse the web is actually dropping: right now, 35% of UK mobile users access the internet, compared to 39% in 2006. And is it any surprise? Browsing standard sites using the version of Internet Explorer built into Windows Mobile is a gruesome experience, with long waits and poorly rendered sites the order of the day. When they do eventually load, trying to navigate round them is something you wouldn't even wish on Simon Cowell.

For this reason, we've long recommended that people try Opera Mobile, which costs $24 if you decide to carry on using it after a 30-day trial, and today the Norwegian developer has announced the beta of the latest version: Opera Mobile 9.5. The first difference is obvious, with an instantly more intuitive interface. For example, previously you had to press Action or Menu at the bottom of the screen if you wanted to alter settings. The new approach is based much more on friendly, easy-to-hit icons.

Also, once a page loaded, you'd be presented with a close-up of the top-left hand corner - the first step would be to zoom out or start scrolling. In version 9.5, it defaults to a fit-to-width style of view, so you instantly see what's going on in your chosen site. Even if it hasn't fully loaded, you can see the main elements of the page and choose to focus in on one area rather than wait for the whole page to download. To zoom in (as before), you just double-click on the appropriate area. This works brilliantly in practice, with the text being rendered both accurately and quickly.