Opera Mini Web Browser (Free)
Version – 5.0
REVIEW – “An amazingly fast mobile browsing alternative to Safari!”
Apple shocked the world when they decided to approve this App! There are a ton of people that have been just waiting to get their hands on a true alternative to the iPhone’s built in Mobile Safari browser, and now the wait is finally over! Opera is well known for creating some of the fastest mobile web browsers for a variety of different devices, and the Opera Mini Web Browser for iPhone and iPod Touch is definitely fast!
Obviously one of the first things to note is there are still a few things that this app cannot do that Safari can. This is mainly because Safari is built into the iPhone OS itself and so has the ability to constantly run in the background! With that said, that is one of the first things I’ll point out. While the Opera Mini app definitely starts more quickly from a “cold” start up after you’ve just rebooted, this is fairly
unimportant because most of the time you are starting Safari cold because it was already running!
The main interface when you start up Opera Mini consists of menu bars at the top and bottom of the screen and a list of shortcuts to commonly visited websites in the center of the screen. These shortcuts are extremely easy to manage. To add a new link to a blank button just touch it. If you want to edit or remove a link all you have to do is touch and hold that button and a menu will pop up asking if you want to clear or edit the link.
The main interface of the browser itself is fairly intuitive. The top of the screen houses two little bars that you should be familiar with. The one on the left is of course the address bar, and the one on the right is a search bar. The search bar will also allow you to select what databases it is searching. All you have to do is touch the little arrow in the right side of the search box and it will bring up a list of sites that you can search.
The menu at the bottom of the screen offers several different buttons and options. The first three 
buttons are all basic browsing options: forward, backward and refresh. The next button toggles the “tabs” feature on and off. If you use a desktop web browser regularly then you are probably very familiar with tabs. These allow you to have quick and easy access to a variety of different websites without actually physically leaving your current page!
One of the things that I was particularly impressed with was how quickly switching tabs really was. As long as your device is not low on memory because you haven’t reset it in a while or
it just has a lot of things running the tabs load up almost instantly! The interface for them also allows you to view and manage all of your open tabs while you are looking at your currently open webpage!
The final menu option at the bottom of the screen is the little wrench icon. Touching this icon will bring up a variety of different options from bookmarks, history and settings all the way down to an ever-present link to the Start page, a function to search for something within the current page and even a help option if you’re not sure how things are supposed to be working!
In the settings page there are several different options that have a great deal to do with how good the 
websites that you visit will look. One of the reasons that Opera’s browsers are the fastest is because their servers actually compress all of the webpages before you view them! You can actually control how much the sites are compressed from this settings page, as well as control things like font-size whether to view “Mobile” versions of websites and toggling on/off the full screen option.
I tested both Opera and Safari on a variety of different web pages. The speed of Opera is extremely noticeable while browsing over a 3G or EDGE connection. Something I did notice though is that on the majority of websites I really couldn’t read the body text of their pages unless I was zoomed in. This is mainly because of the compression that the sites go through and is not a huge deal. It would make it much more difficult to to browse websites with lots of information laid out across the screen like the New York Times website!
Another thing I noticed is that while Opera Mini has decent compatibility with most websites, you cannot stream audio from directly within the browser. If you click a link with an audio file, what happens is that it will close Opera and load up the player from within Safari. While this is not a huge deal, it was definitely a little bit of a nuisance when browsing any site with a lot of embedded audio.
A couple of features that I really liked about this app are it’s ability to save your passwords to the websites you visit and it’s ability to quickly search a page for certain text. The password save feature is simple and easy to use. Basically, when you enter a password and access a page it asks you want it to save that password for later use! The search feature is both simple and awesome! To search all you have to do is touch the little wrench icon in the bottom right corner and then press the “Find in Page” option. I was impressed with how quickly this feature responds in real time and this will be a great tool to help me surf the web most efficiently!
So in the end it really comes down to what you are using it for. If you’re on the road and you just want raw speed over a poor cell connection, and maybe a few extra frills then Opera may be just what you’re looking for. If; however, you’re looking for the beautiful experience with the least compatibility problems Safari is still the top dog in my opinion. But don’t just take my word for it. Head to the App Store today and check out the lightning fast Opera Mini Web Browser on your iPhone or iPod Touch!
- David H.
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Developer – Opera Software ASA
URL: http://www.opera.com/mobile/
© 2010, Davidh. All rights reserved.