Video: Opera Mobile 9.5 redesign is lickity quick, slick

Bring it, we say. Opera Mobile 9.5 is prepped and (almost) ready for beta release. Version 9.5 is noticeably faster thanks to a re-engineered Presto rendering engine and features a new browser interface and downloadable Opera Widgets. A World Factbook widget pulls data from Flickr, Google Maps, and CIA World Factbook simultaneously. Opera was more than happy to compare their new browser with Microsoft's Internet Explorer Mobile to demonstrate the obvious -- IE mobile is cruel. Opera mobile 9.5 will see its first public unveiling starting February 11th at GSMA with a public Symbian, WinMo, and Linux beta expected soon. Click on through for the video.

[J @ Feb 5th 2008 5:33AM]

I'm sure the question on everyone's mind is...can it do Flash?

[L @ Feb 5th 2008 5:41AM]

I read it can...but only on a German page, so you'll probably have to take my word for it, more or less.

http://www.golem.de/0802/57475.html

Flash Lite 3 (=Flash Video capable)

[Drei @ Feb 5th 2008 12:33PM]

Isn't the question on everyone's mind "can it play Doom?"

[E71 @ Feb 5th 2008 2:30PM]

Ok, uh, I'm not really a big fan of Pocket IE but I wonder if this comparison is fair.

It's highly probable that Opera Mobile 9.5 (like Opera Mini) uses a proxy (normally Opera's own servers) to "chew" the data before sending it to your phone.

If that's the case, that's pretty lame of Opera to try and make itself look bigger by going against a browser of a different weight category! :p

[Rudy @ Feb 5th 2008 2:37PM]

No, it doesn't use an intermediate proxy. Only Opera Mini does.

[E71 @ Feb 5th 2008 4:24PM]

Are you speculating or is that something confirmed by Opera Software?

If the former, then I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

[bahgger @ Feb 5th 2008 5:34AM]

Will it come out for the iPhone?

[w00t @ Feb 5th 2008 5:52AM]

I doubt it, the user experience looks very similar to Safari...

I mean this of course as a compliment, Opera have done a great job here and if I had a Windows Mobile device this would definitely be on it!

[Kelmon @ Feb 5th 2008 6:48AM]

It's a definite possibility once the iPhone has been opened up to 3rd party developers if Opera decides to make a version for it. I can't see Apple blocking its use less they end up in court but I also can't see them going out of their way to make it work as well with the other iPhone applications as Safari. It probably all depends on which programming languages iPhone applications can be written in and, if not the same as Opera, how easy it is to port. Later this month we should at least get some answers to these questions.

[Rocketboy @ Feb 5th 2008 8:18AM]

Shouldn't you mean that Safari is similar to Opera Mobile, and that's a complement to Safari? Opera's been around since before the iMac.

[btrill @ Feb 5th 2008 9:15AM]

Could Apple take them to court? Wouldn't it be the same anti-trust shite MS went through with IE on Windows?

[klll @ Feb 5th 2008 9:40AM]

It would be useful on iPhone, since Mobile Safari has crappy caching (reloads pages when you hit Back button, which incredibly sucks on GPRS/EDGE).


Antitrust? No. Neither Apple nor Opera hold monopoly in mobile phones/mobile browsers markets, so there's no case.

[Scott @ Feb 5th 2008 10:23AM]

The thing I miss most about Safari on iPhone is there's no "open in new tab" functionality. You have to open a new blank page before you can do anything with it or use some javascript hack that still takes 4 steps to get to a new tab.

[asurroca @ Feb 5th 2008 1:18PM]

@w00t

Opera Mobile has done what the mobile version of Safari does for years. Either you've never used a mobile device before the iPhone, or you've used one and stuck with whatever crappy default browser came pre-installed (IE, I'm looking at you).

Opera Mobile is looking more and more like the Wii version of Opera. Which is a good thing.

[Tito @ Feb 5th 2008 6:19AM]

That girl moves her head to much. . . like she has a disorder, it makes the introduction seem like its not gonna be good.

[w00t @ Feb 5th 2008 7:06AM]

Yeah I did notice she was flapping around an awful lot :)

[tamoghno @ Feb 5th 2008 6:13AM]

Opera mobile 9.5 ? where was 9.0 ?

[Tito @ Feb 5th 2008 6:21AM]

Probably gonna be released as a update(a few bug fixes and some other things)to the 8.X series and then make you pay for 9.5.

[Matt @ Feb 5th 2008 12:23PM]

I've been waiting for 9.0 forever, I guess they just want it to reflect that it's using a Presto engine on par with the desktop Opera 9.5.

[Ayle @ Feb 5th 2008 6:26AM]

PIE is just horrible. And has not changed much since wm2003...

[BigD @ Feb 5th 2008 6:28AM]

I like the way she said "completely."

For some reason...it was hot.

Opera 9.5 is pretty damn hot, too.

I want it.

[Jordan Alexander Hartley @ Feb 5th 2008 7:14AM]

I can't wait for this, Flash will obviously be a big boost, but even without this looks like it will be a very good browser.

[Ricardo @ Feb 5th 2008 7:04AM]

Linux?

Lol, it's almost unbelievable that I will get a software update from a significant company. Hope it's compatible with EZX.

[L.Rawlins @ Feb 5th 2008 7:33AM]

Fucknuggets.

I recently paid for 8.65 on my N82 and I only get free updates to the point release, which this clearly isn't. Although in saying that, and in fairness, I use Opera religiously on my notebook as 'browser of choice' so what's a tenner for another bit of quality code that I'll get a lot of use out of, eh?

I'm yet to read the article but will assume that Opera Link functionality is integrated into this paid-for version as it is in the current free Opera Mini. Looking forward to it!

[Chip @ Feb 5th 2008 8:34AM]

@L.Rawlins
Don't fret, many of us have paid for, and enjoyed Opera on the desktop and mobile. I've bought Opera for both Symbian and v8.65 for WinMo. Yes, and I'll buy v9.5 for WinMo too. It's well worth the money. It would be nice to reward past purchasers with first dibs on the v9.5 beta.... you know like Cerulean did with Astra. Wait, Oh that's right, Cerulean didn't give a rip about their past purchasers of Trillian Pro. At least I'm over that ;)

[SteveS @ Feb 5th 2008 7:32AM]

Finally the mobile browser market is heating up. I have always said a mobile device's capabilities are limitless (irregardless of actual hardware specs) if given a pervasive data network and a good browser. Atleast Apple, Google, and Opera realize that.

[RikF @ Feb 5th 2008 9:32AM]

What is this irregardless of which you speak?

[bob cobb @ Feb 5th 2008 9:03AM]

Ive been waiting such a long time for this to come out

[Darren @ Feb 5th 2008 8:53AM]

I'd just like to say thanks to brilliant engineers at Apple for redefining how mobile web browsing should work. I guess from here on in we'll all be using the some variant of the iPhone interface. Nice.

[SteveMB @ Feb 5th 2008 5:50PM]

You;re an idiot. And by the look of your posts, you're an Apple fanboy.

[Jeff @ Feb 5th 2008 9:17AM]

What about smartphones? I have an HTC Excalibur and I won't be doing any tapping/double-tapping...

[Akshay @ Feb 5th 2008 9:34AM]

Any body got a youtube mirror, daily motion doesnt work here...

[Cole @ Feb 5th 2008 10:11AM]

Even if you hate everything about the iPhone, you have to admit how its Safari browser made even Opera mobile look like a slug by comparison. That piece of competition really spurred Opera to outdo themselves this time, and now look at what we have. If Opera Mobile is ever available for the iPhone thanks to this month's SDK, I'm sliding Safari off my bottom bar and making way for Opera.

Also remember that all of your versions of Opera 9.5 (desktop, laptop, mobile, etc) will share and sync bookmarks automatically.

[Chet @ Feb 5th 2008 11:51AM]

Safari is one of the reasons I have been thinking about switching from my HTC Tytn to the iPhone. Only I didn't want to go back down to edge.... although using them both head to head, you wouldn't know the difference because PIE is so slow and renders horribly...

Now I can have the best of both worlds!

[ouj @ Feb 5th 2008 11:44AM]

"I'd just like to say thanks to brilliant engineers at Apple for redefining how mobile web browsing should work. "

I think you should thank the engineers at Nokia instead. They came up with the zooming/panning approach well before Apple in 2005. Nokia's browser is based on the same open source technology though (WebKit).

http://www.s60.com/business/productinfo/builtinapplications/webrowser/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Browser_for_S60

[Michael Chastain @ Feb 5th 2008 12:29PM]

I'm pretty sure the Picsel browser offered pan and zoom earlier than that. Others may have preceded it. Who was first with a technology matters little, though.

[Alan Strangis @ Feb 5th 2008 1:28PM]

True that Nokia beat them by a fair bit, and I remember running Piscel's pan/zoom on my Clie UX50 well before the iPhone as well.

Even Opera themselves had pan/zoom before the iPhone's release, in the beta for Opera Mini 4. I've been waiting for them to port this over to Opera Mobile for quite some time now, as I'd prefer a native app over the Java interface layer in WM6.

[decypher44 @ Feb 5th 2008 1:08PM]

Does this mean that it will NOT be available for Palm smartphones, ie, the Centro?

[Ayle @ Feb 5th 2008 5:24PM]

Like version 8.

[matt @ Feb 5th 2008 1:51PM]

but how does it compare to netfront? i stopped using opera mobile and ie mobile a long time ago, netfront is by far superior in the current versions. i would like to see a comparison with this version of opera instead of them saying it is superior to ie mobile

[engadget @ Feb 5th 2008 2:58PM]

Opera 9.5 looks good, probably purchase it when available. As usual, we have the iPhone fans claiming that mobile Safari was the first browser to render full pages, access the full internet, etc. Although mobile Safari is a good browser, it was not the first mobile browser to render full pages, and not the first mobile browser to access the full internet, if you can really consider the lack of Flash video, Java, etc. the full internet. Using the included NetFront browser on a Clie TH55, I was rendering full web pages in 2004. That version of NetFront may not understand newer standards, but it did a nice job with 2004 internet standards. I have used NetFront 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 (all available before the iPhone) on my WinMobile devices, and those browsers do a nice job rendering full pages as well, including secure banking sites. Many think that only Pocket IE, and the WAP browsers available on the free contract phones were the only browsers available before mobile Safari, and mobile Safari was the first to render full pages, and access the full internet. Mobile Safari did up the ante a bit, but it was not the first. The OS2008 browser on the Nokia N800/810 does an excellent job rendering full pages, and plays Flash 9 video as well. When I go to the home pages of the NYTimes with the OS2008 N800, I can actually enjoy the Flash video that is always on page 1.

[tekdemon @ Feb 6th 2008 4:48AM]

I'm really confused by how her accent seems to change as she speaks. She starts off with a mostly American accent, switches into something kinda mysterious, then develops a vaguely English accent at some point. Huh?!