Opera Mini 5 works in tandem with Opera's servers to compress web-page content up to 90 percent before the data is sent to mobile phones, noted Opera Vice President Dag Olav Norem. "Opera Mini will give Android users fast and cost-efficient access to their favorite web sites and services," he said.

A Desktop-Like Experience

Opera Mini 5 now includes popular browser features from the company's platform for desktop PCs and notebooks, such as speed dial, tabbed browsing, password management, and bookmarks. The goal is to enable the platform to deliver a desktop-like web-browsing experience on mobile handsets, the company said.

Tabbed browsing enables several web sites to be viewed at the same time while easily jumping from one to another, while the speed-dial feature provides one-click access to favorite web pages. Additionally, bookmarks and speed-dial settings can now be synchronized between the user's mobile phone and a notebook or desktop PC.

To eliminate the need for horizontal panning on small mobile screens, the browser's mobile view intelligently reformats web pages into a single column. Users also can switch to a landscape mode to view a wider swath of web-page content.

The default size of text from selected web sites can be optimized from within the browser to make it even easier to view content on small screens. Moreover, users can adjust the default zoom level from 60 percent to 200 percent.

Additionally, Android users equipped with touchscreen handsets will be able to navigate content using the mobile platform's new zooming and kinetic scrolling features. And favorite web sites can now be accessed with a single click because Opera Mini 5 remembers usernames and passwords.

A Renewed Browser Push

Opera Software is betting that users will appreciate having browser features that function in much the same way across multiple computing platforms, including handsets. However, it's too early to see whether the Norwegian company is making any headway.

Opera demoed Opera Mini 5 for the iPhone at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona last month. However, Apple has yet to approve the mobile browser for download from its App Store.

Opera also hopes to make browser-market gains at the expense of Microsoft, which recently launched a choice ballot in Europe that gives Internet Explorer users the option of switching to another platform. "Since the browser-screen rollout, we have seen downloads of our desktop browser more than triple in major European countries such as Belgium, France, Spain, Poland and the U.K.," said Opera Communications Manager Falguni Bhuta. (continued...)

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