http://www.osnews.com/story/18106/All_Hail_Mobile_Browsing_Opera_Mini_4_0-beta_Released Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:40:32 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?249011 http://osnews.com/thread?249011 Opera is simply blowing aware other browsers in the mobile market.

Now I need to get a new phone so I can use it. Tue, 19 Jun 2007 19:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sappyvcv) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249018 http://osnews.com/thread?249018 Congrats Opera, you have done it again. You have made a very good browser. Now, please (some time soon) enable me to rotate the screen view. It's not that much to ask, is it? Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jasnils) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249019 http://osnews.com/thread?249019 I've been tried to reach mini.opera.com/beta the whole day, but it just doesn't connect... will have to wait a few days Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jack Malmostoso) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249020 http://osnews.com/thread?249020 Take that Apple. How about a taste of your own medicine?

http://www.operamini.com/beta/video/ Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (TrueDis) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249021 http://osnews.com/thread?249021 It's too slow typing on a numpad. I tried posting a comment from the new beta, but OSNews stated I needed to supply a username/password, even though I entered them. Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249023 http://osnews.com/thread?249023 > It's not that much to ask, is it?

Yes, it is. Performance will go severely down. Rotating is CPU consuming and the J2ME implementation must have a good support for it, and usually it's not. Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249024 http://osnews.com/thread?249024 testing comments with opera mini 4-betaBrowser: Opera/9.50 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.0.8462/14; U; en) Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249025 http://osnews.com/thread?249025 I tried downloading it, but when I go to the download link on my phone, it says "The requested page cannot be displayed". Is there a problem with the download, or have the requirments changed? Just wondering. I've used every version since it came out, and I would really like to try v4. Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fretinator) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249026 http://osnews.com/thread?249026 > It's too slow typing on a numpad.

Get a touchscreen phone then, or a phone with a real keyboard. How is this the browser's fault?

>even though I entered them.

Obviously you made a mistake while entering them. As you can see above, I was able to post a comment through Opera Mini just fine! Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249027 http://osnews.com/thread?249027 Downloading works fine here: http://mini.opera.com/beta/
This is a WAP site, so you will have to go there with your phone. Alternatively, install the WML-addon for Firefox. Please note that Nokia's WebKit S60 3.0 (as opposed to 3.1) won't be able to render WML so if that's what you are using, please use the "Services" browser instead to download the JAD/JAR file. If all fails, email me and I will send you the JAR file.Edited 2007-06-19 20:26 Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249031 http://osnews.com/thread?249031 For some reason on my phone, the link
http://mini.opera.com/beta/#menu
did not work. When I examined the contents of the main page, I found the actual download links:

High-memory version:
http://mini.opera.com/beta/mini.jad?rnd=1213857193&edition=hifi

Low-memory version:
http://mini.opera.com/beta/mini.jad?rnd=1811132084&edition=lofi

Manually entering the high-memory version worked (it downloaded), but the app wouldn't run on my phone.

Manually entering the low-memory version gave me the above error. That is probably what is happening when I click their download link. It is defaulting to the low-memory version, which may be an invalid link. Just a guess.

EDIT: I noticed when I click on either link, a jad file is downloaded, so both links seem to be valid. Maybe the jad file is not valid for the low-memory version.

EDIT: Fixed the mis-typed URL.Edited 2007-06-19 20:38 Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fretinator) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249032 http://osnews.com/thread?249032 > http://mini.oper.com/#menu

That's the wrong URL. You are missing an "a" and a "/beta" in the URL.

Regarding your other problems, what kind of phone do you have exactly? Treos are known to have a buggy J2ME btw. Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249034 http://osnews.com/thread?249034 Sorry, I manually typed that URL. It was what you said. I have a Samsung A740 that is a couple years old. I can understand why the high-memeory version wouldn't work, but I don't understand why the low-memory version doesn't even download. Plus, I had to manually type the urls, since the main download link didn't work at all on my phone (that is the one to http://mini.opera.com/beta/#menu ) Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fretinator) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249039 http://osnews.com/thread?249039 You are right, the low-fi version is a broken link. I emailed Opera about it.

Get a newer phone btw... This phone won't be much usable with Opera mini either, as it has only 128x160 resolution. ;-)Edited 2007-06-19 20:49 Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249040 http://osnews.com/thread?249040 I'd love to have a Treo Palm (since I am a Palm developer in my spare time), but they are SO EXPENSIVE! Smart phones in general are out of my price range. Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fretinator) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249041 http://osnews.com/thread?249041 I did the SMS download on a rather old nokia and it worked right away, even complex sites.

That's pretty darn impressive. Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (predictor) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249047 http://osnews.com/thread?249047 Actually, it's not guaranteed that Treos will work with Opera Mini... the J2ME implementation on Treos is pretty spotty.

Get another phone, cheap but powerful, if you are willing to leave Sprint that is for GSM. The best deal in terms of features/price at this point in time it would be this:
http://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_slvr_l7-1053.php ($128, unlocked). It has Bluetooth, quadband, 176x220 TFT, microSD, VGA camera. Best deal for the feature-set offered, only thing missing is EDGE (although EDGE is not always faster than GPRS, so it's not a big deal). If you can find the Motorola SLVR L7e model instead (which adds EDGE) for $150, go for it! http://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_slvr_l7e-1763.php

Alternatively, I would go for this $190 phone: http://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_rizr_z3-1647.php I wouldn't bother with Samsung, LG or other Motorola models. I like Nokia's cheap models though (remember, I am talking about unlocked less-than-$200 phones).

Although AT&T actually offers for free a better than suggested, 3G phone if you switch over to them, as an incentive... ;-)Edited 2007-06-19 21:16 Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249055 http://osnews.com/thread?249055 Only if you are not rotating by 90, 180, 270 degrees. On those it is straightforward (like as mirroring). Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (acobar) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249058 http://osnews.com/thread?249058 You are very wrong. No matter how you rotate, it can make things much slower. From twice slower, to 5 times slower. And given that we are J2ME-dependant here rather than native code that you can control, things will only get worse. More over, Opera Mini is designed to run on phones with 50 Mhz CPUs. Cut the speed 1-5 times, and you are left with an unusable product. Besides, J2ME implementations are too many and too buggy for such tricks.

Sorry, but if I was a product manager at Opera, I would also decide against it. I am pretty sure the subject has come up in their engineering meetings. Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249061 http://osnews.com/thread?249061 so far, but the rss support is missing (just as well as it was flaky in the older ones. i recently lost all of mine).

for some reason it kinda goes overboard on the resizing of complex tables in non-fit mode (at least on the one forum i have tested it on so far). but in fit mode its all charms. Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249070 http://osnews.com/thread?249070 Opera Mobile does rotate (as in is rotated) on my Nokia N95. Perhaps, Opera could enable the Opera Mini proxy for Opera Mobile too.

No reason why I wouldn't like to have a whooping speed on that device.

Since Opera runs natively, I wouldn't have to expect any speed bumps turning the screen. Tue, 19 Jun 2007 22:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jasnils) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249071 http://osnews.com/thread?249071 You are thinking very simplistically. Opera Mobile is NOT Opera Mini. Opera Mobile is a native app which can have hooks to the underlying Symbian functions. Opera Mini can't. More over, the N95 (which I also own), can do rotation itself, because Symbian supports it. Also, the N95 is over 320 Mhz and it has a kick-ass J2ME implementation (the best in the industry). You are in the minority, because most "cheap" phones are between 40 and 100 Mhz. Opera Mini must cater to them because this is where its main strength is: bringing the web on a low-ass phone.

Rotating a web page is somewhat costly, but the cost depends on 2 external factors:
-if the images aren't JPEG, or if they're JPEG but the JPEG decoder can't rotate while decoding, images are expensive to render.
-if the font engine can't rotate while drawing, text becomes expensive to render.
If images can be rotated for cheap/free, and if text-drawing is as speedy at 90 degrees is it is when straight, there's no performance difference at all.

I'd be very surprised if J2ME had such optimizations for image/text decoding. And IF there is ONE or TWO implementations of J2ME that can do that (or even worse, versions of specific implementations), the rest can't. So, the answer is "no", for at least a few more years.Edited 2007-06-19 22:18 Tue, 19 Jun 2007 22:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249072 http://osnews.com/thread?249072 I can recommend the Nokia 6233. Wonderful 240x320 screen. And it's 3G/UMTS works wonders for my Nokia N800 when out an about. Tue, 19 Jun 2007 22:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (DevL) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249073 http://osnews.com/thread?249073 That's a nice feature-set (if you leave aside the fact that it's not quad-band, which is a must-have feature if you live in USA like Fretinator does), but I doubt you can find that phone model for $150 or even $190. Tue, 19 Jun 2007 22:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249075 http://osnews.com/thread?249075 Hey, I'm just a user.

And too many times have I heard things can't be done this way or that way.... that wont stop until somebody is really wrong and does it. -- don't shoot me!

OS is great at doing wonders, and some times these wonders need a tweek. The problem is that the user often has to be the one doing it. Kind of scares users away. Tue, 19 Jun 2007 22:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jasnils) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249085 http://osnews.com/thread?249085 Its fit to width feature is interesting. And I can view the overall layout of a site thanks to its zoom out feature. But I can't find out how to make the font smaller which forces me to scroll more often. I hope it'll back in next beta.Browser: Opera/9.50 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.0.8462/8; U; en) Tue, 19 Jun 2007 23:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (edogawaconan) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249087 http://osnews.com/thread?249087 they said they removed the small font feature now that they have zoom in. It was said in their forum. I would suggest you file a feature request about it. Tue, 19 Jun 2007 23:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249118 http://osnews.com/thread?249118 Is there a problem with the download, or have the requirments changed? Just wondering. I've used every version since it came out,

http://www.iphone-video-converter.org/ Wed, 20 Jun 2007 02:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaitlynggo) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249180 http://osnews.com/thread?249180 The fact that Opera Mini completely blows away the built-in browser in my newly bought N95 with the hyped MiniMap feature... is amazing. Opera Mini is faster, smoother and more helpful with its automatic zooming and margin snapping. The built-in browser feels sluggish and cumbersome in comparison.

However, I find it very strange that Opera Mini also provides a better browsing experience than the real Opera Mobile browser, which is not even free software. How can they motivate that? For security and downloading, I just use the built-in browser. For everything else, Opera Mini is a perfect fit.Edited 2007-06-20 09:14 Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (djst) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249225 http://osnews.com/thread?249225 Nokia 6234 is the quad-band version. But sure, you probably won't get it for under $200. You will however get a decent phone and as always, you get what you pay for. Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (DevL) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249315 http://osnews.com/thread?249315 Warning ! Link in the comment I'm replying to might contain a virus (sorry for this offtopic comment) Wed, 20 Jun 2007 16:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lord_rob) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249361 http://osnews.com/thread?249361 I'm bit disappointed, that there's no more Wikipedia search in Operas main page. But ability to render complete pages - Oh YEAH BABY! Thats made my day Browser: Opera/9.50 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.0.8462/20; U; en) Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Dr-ROX) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?249370 http://osnews.com/thread?249370 I just downloaded Opera 4 Beta... and it rocks! Rendering whole pages is just great, the best mobile feature I have seen in a long time. Great stuff. Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kajaman) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?250398 http://osnews.com/thread?250398 A web-based RSS reader optimized for the iPhone's interface. It works pretty nicely, though I'm guessing that the iPhone's version of the Safari web browser will have a built in RSS reader.

http://www.pspconverter.com/iphone_converter/ Mon, 25 Jun 2007 09:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (alexislli) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?250587 http://osnews.com/thread?250587 you beat me to the submit.
the iphone is redic nice.
Rev-B should be worth buying

http://www.iphone-converter.org/convert-iphone/ Tue, 26 Jun 2007 07:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (siennalli) Comments