Opera has last month released two versions of its mobile browser, the Opera Mini 6 and Opera Mobile 11 sending the users into a tizzy as which one should they go for?
The biggest difference between the two is that Opera Mobile 11 is only for those smartphones that has Symbian, Android or Windows Phone operating system. Else, you will have to be content with Opera Mini 6 only.
The core of both the mobile browsers remains the same. The Browser experience and features are also similar in both. The browser engine in Opera Mini 6 is located on Opera servers, whereas Opera Mobile 11 has the browser engine stored in your phone itself.
When the users enter a web address in the address bar of the browser, the Opera Mobile 11 gets the page loaded directly from the web server, whereas in Opera Mini 6, the request first goes to Opera Mini server, which gets the pages for you from the web. The pages are then converted into a lightweight version which is then sent to the smartphones.
In Opera Mini 6, however, some complicated web pages may not appear correctly in your smartphones. The advanced users could get both the browsers installed and browse mobile websites depending on the connection, for example they may use Opera Mobile 11 when they are on WiFi and Opera Mini 6 when they are browsing on mobile service provider network.
There are some superficial changes such as the black navigation bar background and menu bar icon that now appears as “O”. Once users start browsing, they notice the deeper changes. The HTML5 support, better web page rendering, and of course the touchscreen specialist —pinch zooming, which is extremely smooth and works well even on phones where RAM (random access memory) is less.
However, the Pinch to Zoom function does not work well on resistive touchscreens or on phones where multi touch doesn’t work.
The Symbian version of Opera Mobile 11 looks good. Zooming in the web pages doesn’t distract from the web pages because the text fits again to adjust with the screen size. Another new feature is zooming in and zooming out by just tapping twice on the touchscreens. In the earlier version, only a single tap allowed users to zoom in.
The demand from users that they be allowed to quickly go up or down the web page has also been answered this time with the on screen arrows.
The sharing feature allowed in Android and Symbian (on these phones, sharing is called “SEND”) phones lets users to share the web page address and title with others. The new tabs are opened in the background, another change from earlier Opera version.
And yes, users can play Flash videos on it without even downloading Flash player in their devices. The navigation bar of the browser goes to the top in tablet version of the browser.