Opera Mini 4 beta

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Tom_Rush

208 posts

Master Geek

# 14237 22-Jun-2007 13:55

I was quite impressed with the new Opera Mini version 4 beta web browser.
Download information can be found at Opera Mini 4 beta
Unfortunately is doesn't seem to be supported on the older MIDP 1.0 Java mobile phones.
The current Opera Mini version 3.1 does support MIDP 1.0 so I'd say get it quick and don't lose it.
The new beta version does not appear to overwrite any previous version you had, thus you have access to your previous download, plus the new beta version.

For a minute I thought that the new Opera Mini supported HTML tables and was wondering why it was not mentioned in the features.
Then I realised that it was the CSS support displaying things in a visual manner.
Way cool. (Oh, I'm not talking about people who design web pages using tables. This is tables used as tables.)
gzip is supported (as before) and as Opera states, it'll beat most browsers on download size $$$$$, where most web sites are not natively designed to support compression.
Opera Mini accesses the site you have requested, formats the output and then presents it to your mobile phone.
This is how they can compression data from any site you visit.

Mobile Web browsers (Opera 8.5, Netfront 3.3+, Obigo, Pocket IE, Nokia and etc) used to view sites designed for mobile phones (XHTML-MP) will (at this time) present better than Opera Mini. However most web sites are not mobile ready (more fool them) and older phones web browsers sucked.
Also using your native mobile phone browser to access sites, you may lose compression if both your browser and/or the web site don't support it.
So in summary, Opera Mini 4 looks like it's going to plug a gap in what looks like, a pretty cool way.
Anyway, I liked it.

Vulpine Mobile
Mobile phone specifications, accessed from a mobile phone

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
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# 75667 22-Jun-2007 15:26

You can always use a service such as Skweezer on other browsers to have a webpage compressed on the fly...

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weatherman

99 posts

Master Geek

# 75734 23-Jun-2007 19:56

Yep, its a pretty clever piece of software, for sure. I've spent a couple of days playing with it, and am impressed by its abilities. Once the bugs are eliminated, it'll be a winner. My only dissapointment with it was that it uses about 60% more data than previous versions, and in NZ's expensive data environment, I'd rather stick with the earlier version!

George

Tom_Rush

208 posts

Master Geek

# 75889 25-Jun-2007 16:06

Ah yes, the extra data compared to the Opera mini version 3 would be the CSS (Cascading Style Sheet - Presentation/Pretty colours).

I'm guessing they don't pass any CSS files through to the Java MIDLet (The thing that runs Opera Mini on your phone).
This would mean each page is sent to your phone including the presentation.

In 'native' browsers the CSS file is hoovered in once, cached and supports all the presentation without being called again.
Opera 8.5 browser for mobiles would be a good example of this.
Now, if a mobile phone browser used AJAX* (Which Opera 8.5 for mobiles may do) You'd definately be on a reduced data winner.
CSS, AJAX and compression. What a team.

With an NZ Vodafone Data plan the cost of data is not too bad.... for NZ.
NZD10.00 per month gets you 3MB of data with data above that billed at 0.02c per 10KB.
I'm guessing Telecom NZ has something similar.

Tom

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AJAX* Asynchronous Javascript and XML. Uses Javascript as a tool to access data on the server, then return and display the data without having to leave the current web page.

freitasm

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# 75891 25-Jun-2007 16:25

Tom_Rush: With an NZ Vodafone Data plan the cost of data is not too bad.... for NZ.
NZD10.00 per month gets you 3MB of data with data above that billed at 0.2c per 10KB.
I'm guessing Telecom NZ has something similar.

You think $20/MB is not too bad? You can get a 1GB plan for $49! Anytning below this is really expensive in my books...

My technology disclosure | Digital Transformation | Enterprise Content Management | Customer Relationship Management | Data Insights, Business Intelligence and Advanced Analytics

Tom_Rush

208 posts

Master Geek

# 75931 25-Jun-2007 23:15

freitasm:
Tom_Rush: With an NZ Vodafone Data plan the cost of data is not too bad.... for NZ.
NZD10.00 per month gets you 3MB of data with data above that billed at 0.2c per 10KB.
I'm guessing Telecom NZ has something similar.

You think $20/MB is not too bad? You can get a 1GB plan for $49! Anytning below this is really expensive in my books...

No, I think NZD20 per MB is robbery. And you're quite right to point this out.
That's why I corrected my post and put 2 cents instead of 20 cents.
NZD2.00 per MB when exceeding 3MB is a little better.

Outside of my dodgie math, $10 is cheaper than $49 if you're only using 3MB per month.

Next mobile will have WiFi

weatherman

99 posts

Master Geek

# 78115 14-Jul-2007 20:20

OM 4 has been running on my SE P900i now for about 3 weeks, and I've burned through quite a bit of data putting it through its paces back-to-back with OM 3.1.

Compared to OM 3.1, the Beta is markedly slower to load pages. This is no doubt due to the fact that each page is much "denser" in resolution than those loaded by 3.1, thanks to the CSS.

The increase in data usage is now confirmed at 60% more - same reason as above - lots more pixels in each page. So if I decide to adopt the final version of OM4, my pockets will have to be deepened!!

The irritating "Socket - Accept/Decline" dialog box has been overcome by the simple expedient of selecting HTTP. This doesn't affect speed or performance at all on my handset.

The capitalisation glitch mentioned on the Opera Mini forum has appeared for me, too. I've been attempting to edit my website using OM4, and found that (compared to OM3.1) the process is slow, clumsy (too much scrolling), and sometimes refuses to work at all. OM 4 doesn't seem to handle HTML with the elan of OM 3.1. Also, OM4 refuses to allow me to use capitals, so when I alter text, any capitalisation vanishes. By comparison, OM 3.1 does the job faultlessly.

I'm sure the capitalisation hiccup will be fixed in the final release, so I'll wait and see......OM4 will have to be as easy to use as OM3.1, before this user changes versions!

George