Opera Mini 5 hits Android Market

By on Mar 11, 2010 at 9:43 AM
mobile March 11, 2010

Opera Mini 5 Android

Our friends from Norway have dropped a little present in the Android Market — especially for all you Opera fans — as Opera Mini 5 beta 2 is available for download starting… now. Opera’s next generation mobile web browser packs tabbed browsing, speed dial, Opera Link, a download manager, and a password manager, amongst other things. Those of you who are sick of the default Android browser and can’t quite cozy up to Dolphin can go ahead and take Opera Mini 5 for a spin… and do let us know what you think about it.

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  • ChocoTaco

    Does it incorporate multi-touch pinch-zoom? iDon’t have Opera and I’m not too familiar.

    • grrr

      No, it doesn’t.

    • Nokia N900

      If they did Apple would have a lawsuit pending

  • Kratos

    Yawn

  • grrr

    Opera mini sucks on blackberry and android.

    • StevenGlansburg

      grrr,

      I agree with you about Opera mini sucking on blackberry, though it’s a step up from the stock browser, which sucks even more.

      Also why would you want this Android? Android’s native browser or the dolphin one are more or less identical to safari on the iphone, which is the best mobile browser. PERIOD.

  • http://twitter.com/dininginhell Bolly

    Good points:
    -It renders pages quickly even over a slow connection (for me it rendered the desktop version of BGR over GPRS at a similar speed to that at which the default Browser rendered the same page over 3G)
    -It renders web pages pretty much perfectly, even those like Endadget and BGR that have a lot of pictures, and stuff like that.
    -The traditional Opera ‘Speed-Dial’ feature is very useful indeed. Allows very fast access to my most used websites.
    -Double-tap to zoom in and out. However this is countered by a bad point (see below).
    -In addition to touch navigation, if you have a trackball, D-Pad, or optical trackpad, you can use it to control a mouse pointer. It’s a bit fiddly sometimes but it’s useful to have for those times you need extra precision.

    And the bad points:
    -There are two levels of zooming: an ‘Overview’ level and a ‘zoomed in’ level. There is no ‘grey area’ between ‘zoomed in’ and ‘zoomed out.’ You’ll need to use it to understand what I mean but it’s very annoying.
    -No multi-touch, not that there’s much use for it with no real zoom function at all.
    -It cannot be set as the default browser, or for that matter interact with any other application or any part of the OS. You can’t open links from Twidroid (or any other twitter app) with it, you can’t open searches with it.
    -It feels more like the old Opera Mini 4.2 – a Java application running in a Java wrapper – rather than a ‘native’ application. There’s a reason why Firefox for Android is taking so long, you know.
    -The scrolling needs massive work done to it. Kinetic scrolling is absent, and you really notice it.

    But overall, I like Opera Mini 5 for Android. I would recommend that you at least try it even if you decide not to stick with it.

    • m

      Good summary, I agree.

      Add one more negative (Sprint Hero): Flash works sometimes with default browser but never with Opera.

      • http://twitter.com/dininginhell Bolly

        Well I’m on a G1 so I don;t have Flash anyways, but I guess you’re right about flash :/

    • Bobba

      It renders website perfectly ??? Are you using the same Mini I’m using???

      It totally messes up the fonts and formatting on Engadget.com and other websites. A total deal breaker for me. Yeah it’s really fast but I don’t want to comprimise the look and feel of a page.

      Something about this browser just seems janky to me. I’ll stick with xScope browser on Android which is faster than stock, has tabs, can download files, download YouTube, and a built in file manager.

  • Dara

    Android doesn’t even get an Opera Mobile beta yet?

  • jim

    LOL. BGR Doesn’t work on Opera. Uninstalled.

    • StevenGlansburg

      yup, it won’t even load the stories on Blackberry Opera mini… total fail Opera

      • JHazey

        I just posted this using opera mini 5 beta 2 on my Blackberry Tour. Total fail Glansburg

  • radio2

    I just tried out Opera Mini and I’d have to say this thing is LIGHTNING fast compared to Dolphin Browser.

    I just wish it had pinch-to-zoom.

    • http://twitter.com/dininginhell Bolly

      Or any sort of proper zooming at all, for that matter :P

      • DaHarder

        Hmm…

        Ever heard of ‘Double Tapping’ ?

      • http://twitter.com/dininginhell Bolly

        Proper zooming.

        Like when there are more than one levels of ‘zoom’.

        Opera Mini 5 on Android has an overview and a zoomed in view and that’s it. nothing in between. Yes there is double tap but it’s a bit pointless.

        See my summary given above.

    • D

      Go ask apple to allow pinch and zoom, otherwise Steve B-Jobs will start crying again

      • shawn

        Dolphin has pinch zoom and there seems to be no threat of an apple lawsuit.

      • Bobby

        probably cause they never heard of it! Well, i know i havent.. *downloads*

  • Sith_Apprentice

    Skyfire for Android. Lets see if that comes to pass. They failed on the BB version lol

  • Steverl22

    Just got done trying it out and this thing is fast!!!

    Much better then stock browser!

  • penetrode

    I think it’s all about preference. Yea Opera mini lacks multi-touch FOR NOW.

    The plus is that we actually have a choice of which browser we use.

  • gmanlive

    I like this browser it has to have multi touch to succeed.

    • DaHarder

      Why does it ‘need’ pinch-to-zoom?

      Sure it would make a great browser even better, but Double Tapping works perfectly on devices with such small screens, and it can be done very effectively while holding the device with one hand.

  • Brandon

    BGR doesn’t load completely using opera!

  • gmac

    Whyb doesn’t anyone ever mention Xscope for android? Its much better than stock , dolphin broswer, and opera mini.

    • Fireball

      Absolutely Agree! Sure it cost a buck something but is totally worth it. Very fast and has a unique zoom feature that allows plenty of freedom instead of only 2 settings.

  • http://osirisdevelopment.com Chris Thompson

    I just tested Opera Mini 5 and on my myTouch 3G, it’s so much faster than the built-in browser. I can click a page and have it up and showing in 1-2 seconds. The built-in browser for me usually takes 10 seconds just to show me that’s is loading, and then I can’t even do anything while it’s loading. It’s horribly slow (given that part of that is the myTouch’s ARM11+96MB of available RAM).

    Opera Mini 5 is definitely going to be the browser I use.

  • smooter

    Lightning fast, that is for sure!

    Can’t change User Agent settings though, and with a large screen smartphone (Droid) why would I want to see mobile pages?

    Pinch/Zoom would be nice as well.

    Still like Dolphin overall

    smooter

  • flyinion

    Uninstalled about 5 minutes after I put it on. Maybe I did something wrong, but on a Droid I couldn’t get any kind of zoom working, and it seemed to leave a big empty space on the right side of pages when in landscape mode. Like the droid screen resolution was too much. So pages were really squished sideways.

  • John

    Loads fast on my My touch. Zoom works fine for me. BGR report sort of loads. Lists headlines, won’t display the article though.out how to read them:). Will play with it a bit more. Not bad though.

  • betchplz

    It’s fast but it’s not terribly accurate, I still prefer the stock browser.. this might be what I use if I’m on EDGE however.

  • DaHarder

    Opera Mini 5 Beta = Shockingly Fast and Efficient!

    That Is All

  • webby

    I downloaded Opera Mini and have been using it. It’s definitely blazing fast. I’ll be giving it a go for awhile.

  • Emily

    I don’t care about the lack of pinch zoom. The double tap to zoom in is quick, but to zoom out it’s kinda rubbish. The scrolling sucks balls. The Droid native browser and even Dolphin can flick once and reach the bottom of a long page in 2 seconds. With Opera and the iPhone it takes like 20 flicks to do the same thing. I’ll pass.

    I’m using the 2.1 multitouch browser from the Droid OTA we never received. It’s very fast, not quite Opera fast but it doesn’t load crappy quality pictures to increase speed. It’s probably twice as fast as the browser on 2.0.1. Droid owners not rooted, be patient.

  • clamknuckle

    Steel is very nice browser for Android too. I prefer it over dolphin. It’s very Spartn though, not a lot to it, but its fast and it works.

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