Test Opera Mobile 10 beta for Symbian with Google Wave
I like Opera Mini very much but there are limitations of it. The latest Opera Mini 5 Beta has a lot of enhancement. However, it is too slow even on my N82 since Opera Mini is developed with Java ME. Opera also has native Symbian version, which is called Opera Mobile. The previous version of Opera Mobile I tried is 8.65 but I was not impressed by it. When I found there is Opera Mobile 10 beta available to download for free, I decided to give it another try.
Though I already have several mobile web browsers (the default one, Opera Mini, UCWeb and Skyfire, which I uninstalled a few weeks ago) installed on my Nokia N82 and there are sufficient in most cases, none of them could provide a user experience close to web browsers on PC like Safari on iPhone, Chrome on Android and Fennec on N900(Maemo) do. One example is that only Safari, Chrome and Fennec are mobile web browsers being proved capable to run Google Wave. That’s why I want to test Opera Mobile 10 beta with Google Wave.
After I typed in my Google Wave username and password, there was no warning message about compatible, which would be seen by iPhone and Android users. But it took very long time to load the Google Wave page completely even with a WiFi connection. Anyhow, the Google Wave page was displayed in Opera Mobile 10 beta though it was not perfect. Nevertheless, most items were displayed as their should be what is much better than the half white page of Google Wave in IE. Unfortunately, I got a pop-up window of submitting error report/refreshing page as what would also be seen in IE. In fact, I could create a new Google Wave but could not edit any of waves. Well, the final conclusion is that Opera Mobile 10 beta for Symbian is still not capable to run Google Wave, but it is a step further than the default WebKit browser by Nokia, which would only display a blank page when accessing Google Wave.
Except the experiment to run Google Wave in Opera Mobile 10 beta for Symbian, there are a few more things I found about this new mobile web browser.
- The UI is very similar to Opera Mini: the same layout, the same menu and the same shortcuts;
- It is much faster than Opera Mini, the default WebKit browser by Nokia (when loading web pages) and previous Opera Mobile version;
- The web pages rendering of Opera Mobile 10 beta is much better than Opera Mini and the default WebKit browser by Nokia. For example, Google Analytics could be rendered correctly in Opera Mobile 10 beta, while the other two could not;
- But some mobile sites were not correctly rendered in Opera Mobile 10 beta, for example, the mobile version of Yahoo finance was limited to part of the screen;
- T9 input is not accessable under “inline editing” mode, which is understandable for Java ME based Opera Mini but rediculous for a native Symbian program like Opera Mobile;
- Opera Mobile 10 beta has built-in download function while Opera Mini 5 beta doesn’t;
- Though Turbo mode could speed up the speed to load web pages significantly, but it would reduced image quality so that texts in pictures were not readable at all;
- Folder for saved pages is not configurable in Opera Mobile 10 beta while Opera Mini 5 beta has this option;
- Though WapReview pointed out that Opera Mobile 10 beta use more memory than the default WebKit browser by Nokia and Opera Mini 5 beta to load same web pages, I had an impression that Opera Mobile 10 beta use less memory if a lot of pages had been opened;
- The text copied in Opera Mobile 10 beta could be used in other programs while Opera Mini 5 beta couldn’t;
- According to the official release note, Asia languages are not supported yet. This is true for S60V3. Web pages in Asia languages could be displayed correctly in Opera Mobile 10 beta on S60V5.
Opera Mobile 10 beta can be downloaded directly from http://get.opera.com/pub/opera/series60/3.x/1000b1/Opera_Mobile_10_beta_1.sis for free.
In a test frequently quoted on Internet, Opera Mobile was left behind it competitors like Safari on iPhone or Chrome on Android. The latest Opera Mobile 10 Beta is a nice try to catch up them in the game.
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