Opera Mobile 9.5 beta released into the wilds

We've been waiting for this day ever since Opera first announced its Opera Mobile 9.5 web browser back in February. Today, it's out for a beta 1 launch. In other words, it'll be buggy but likely far more useful than the browser already installed on your touchscreen-based (PocketPC) WinMo professional phone. The initial release includes support for double-tap zoom, landscape flip, off-line page save, tab-like browsing, auto-URL complete, and a Google-search bar to name just a few of the 9.5 features. More functionality will be added later including Google Gears and support for Flash video on WinMo and Symbian devices. CNET already has the hands-on video review up for your pickings. Better yet, download and install for yourself and tell us what you think in the comments below.

Update: PhoneArena has chimed-in with a video hands-on of its own. Check it after the break.

Read -- Opera Mobile 9.5 beta 1
Read -- CNET first look

[Guerrilla Mason @ Jul 17th 2008 6:42AM]

Installed this on my Blackjack 2 a little while after it came out. Little buggy from the tiny bit I've played with it, with my biggest complaint being the menu button does nothing. Meh, I guess, from reading the article, it's made mainly for touchscreen phones?

[Ike Turner @ Jul 17th 2008 6:48AM]

Yes only for touchscreen devices for the moment.
Works perfectly BTW..

[martin @ Jul 17th 2008 6:45AM]

no s60 beta? thats a bit crap, i want a free pointer like opera mini has got, 8.65 is a bit odd cus of that

[Guerrilla Mason @ Jul 17th 2008 6:49AM]

yeah, just watched the video from cnet and it's not for smartphones. That's kind of disappointing. I was a little excited about this. Guess I gotta do my research next time.

[bakersdozen @ Jul 17th 2008 6:50AM]

is this the one already installed on the touch diamond (hence the picture)?

[Snith @ Jul 17th 2008 7:23AM]

Yep it is. I'm using it for about a month now and it is really good.

[1234321 @ Jul 17th 2008 7:42AM]

X-) between you and me I've been used a Touch Diamond's ripped Opera 9.5 for a while on my Axim X50v, works well but I'm glad a stardard release is finally coming out.
It supports VGA and has a better site rendering than any other PocketPC web browser. No flash 9 support or FlashVideoBundle support though so still need Pocket IE for video streaming
The only better pocket browser is microB on the N800/810

[PCIV @ Jul 17th 2008 9:32AM]

Same here, been using it for a while now. Works like a charm, comparable to the safari on my touch, but with Flash. Only problem is that opening it crashes my Live Messenger...

[Kespar @ Jul 17th 2008 7:05AM]

works quite well, lovely compared to the winmo pro ie browser. sent this comment using it on my tytnII, no complaints!

[L.Rawlins @ Jul 17th 2008 7:08AM]

I'm going to assume that like Opera Mini, Mobile 9.5 has Opera Link configured to sync all my bookmarks and settings from my desktop browser. It's a real shame that the beta's only for touch-screen devices though, I've been looking forward to this for a while now.

[Lein @ Jul 17th 2008 7:15AM]

This new release doesn't seem too bad, but I am still trying to find what's better about this one compared to some of the pre-release betas that have been circulating about. Apart from the new white color scheme and this shiny new "Out of memory" error, it doesn't look like much. I think I'll just stick with the insanely-fast Opera Mini until they get this beast tamed.

[Surur @ Jul 17th 2008 9:04AM]

I think the leaked version is actually much better. See here.

http://wmpoweruser.com/?p=437

[OneLove @ Jul 17th 2008 12:19PM]

"out of memory, please close a tab to free memory". Arghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

[Snith @ Jul 17th 2008 7:24AM]

Yep it is. I'm using it for about a month now and it is really good.

[dbutters @ Jul 17th 2008 7:41AM]

I'm confused, I've had this on my tytnII for at least a month now... ?

[John @ Jul 17th 2008 7:47AM]

So flash is planned for this browser.. looks like safari aint looking too special anymore.

[deyanimay @ Jul 17th 2008 8:18AM]

skyfire already has flash support

[Nomi @ Jul 17th 2008 8:40AM]

skyfire is BS...and they don't stop spamming me.

[mixmaven @ Jul 17th 2008 8:56AM]

...and skyfire doesn't support VGA devices like the diamond. It craps out

[Paul Dullford @ Jul 17th 2008 7:48AM]

Opera Mobile is a superb mobile browser. It trumps Mobile Safari because it has tab-like browsing, supports web standards quite well, and will use Flash! I don't see why it's limited to Windows Mobile and Symbian devices, though. Ah well, I'll keep using Opera Mini on the BlackBerry, I guess.
Like the fact that it's pre-installed on the Touch Diamond, though.

[Andrew @ Jul 17th 2008 8:13AM]

It really doesn't trump Safari at all. Everything about the WM architecture is just too slow. It takes forever for pages to open, they are slow to update blank tiles as you scroll, etc.

Don't take it the wrong way. I was a Mogul user up until last Friday, and use many of the leaked 9.5 builds. I always thought it was just as good as the iPhone too, until I used the iPhone, and trust me, nothing compares.

I don't think it's so much Opera's fault though. Opera 9.5 is very nice, but the phones and the OS are far too slow. I found it to be a headache to try to open pages that sit there rendering little images forever. Not a bandwidth constraint, but a lack of memory and processing speed on the device.

Hell, even the new Touch DIamond and Pro haven't bumped the processing speed up much. At least they have some memory now though, which should help a lot. It seems to me like WM devices could catch up fast with a faster CPU, more memory, and a higher resolution screen, but no one can ever seem to release a device that has it all.

[Greg @ Jul 17th 2008 8:42AM]

Andrew you smell like a troll......

[Skeepax @ Jul 17th 2008 9:17AM]

why say the OS is too slow when you then go on to explain that the problem is the processor and memory? If you had left that bit out I think you wouldn't smell like a troll (although I don't really smell anything)

[PCIV @ Jul 17th 2008 9:34AM]

Andrew, it DOES trump Safari. Until they get flash. The problem runs with Windows. That's why I'm typing this with a mac. It actually runs well if you have nothing in the background.

[roach @ Jul 17th 2008 12:28PM]

They're slow because manufacturer save cost by using minimum hardware requirement set by MS. Minimum requirement means it will run but if you have fancy graphic and whatnot, it will run slow.

[Andrew @ Jul 17th 2008 1:12PM]

Quit being a bunch of cry babies. I said I had a WM phone for quite a while up until last Friday. I knew just because I mentioned the word "iPhone" which makes you all burst into tears that you'd start whining and I'd get low ranked (which I could honestly care less).

Now read what I said like a mature adult. I've had a WM phone. I was the guy that had friends with iPhones and told them how my phone could do everything theirs could do, and then some, I made iPhone owners wish they had my phone. Then I got an iPhone... the internet experience DOES NOT COMPARE. This is from someone who has actually experienced both, and is giving their non-biased opinion.

Greg: Your post was worthless. If you're going to call me a troll, at least give a reason.

Skeepax: They are both slower. The CPU and memory in WM devices is pathetically slow, and I really don't know why. This is something that has bugged me for a long time. If they were just faster, then the whole experience would be better. Granted the Mogul is one of the worst for resources, but still, no one really seems to be pushing WM devices that are powerful. HTC is making a step in the right direction by putting a nice screen and a lot of memory on the Diamond and Pro, however, they still aren't bumping the CPU speed much (actually, not at all I don't think, can't remember the exact specs now).

But, the OS is slow too. WM really needs an overhaul. Either they need more powerful devices to handle the complexity of the OS (because really it's just CE ported over), or the OS needs to be simplified drastically. There is too much going on for the devices they run on.

PCIV: Yes, I give you that Safari doesn't have flash, and that's a major drawback, however, and this goes along with what I was saying before, a lot of WM devices can't even handle flash anyway. It requires memory, processing power, and graphics acceleration, 3 things that WM lacks. I've installed Flash Lite on my Mogul before and tried to watch a video on Youtube... It didn't go so well. The system damn near crashed just trying to load it, and when it did, it couldn't do better than a frame every few seconds.

On the other hand, and again, this is a direct comparison, and completely un-biased... when I was at the airport 2 weeks ago with my Mogul, I tried to load my bank account from my phone (using Opera 9.5, mind you). The experience was terrible, and I couldn't even get one of the pages to load. It took forever to get all the files and draw the pages, and bandwidth wasn't an issue (full strength 3g, EVDO Rev A). I tried loading that same page in Safari Mobile the other day, and had no trouble at all getting in.

roach: Then how about someone not build to bare minimums for once? Don't you think their phone would be a hit if they did so? That's what I kept saying and yet still no one did it. I just don't get it.

Trust me, I was on the WM bandwagon a little while ago too, however, even if WM can beat the iPhone in anything else, the mobile experience on a WM device, even with Opera 9.5, just isn't enjoyable.

You can rate me low all you want, but I've yet to hear a valid argument other than just whining and rating me low because I said the word iPhone. Bottom line, if you show anyone who has no experience with either side, both options, I bet anything they would say Safari is a better experience still.

[Tony @ Jul 17th 2008 1:44PM]

@ Andrew

Flash runs perfectly on my 800w, very smooth on WM. So that directly contradicts what you're saying there.

I agree with your other points though, even if you are judging based on one of the slowest and buggiest WM PPC's out there right now.

[Andrew @ Jul 17th 2008 3:29PM]

Tony: Ahh, see, I haven't had anything decent to run it on. You're pretty much right though. There are devices years old that are faster than the Mogul. But still, it's going to be hit and miss across the WM platform, plus, depending on the page, flash objects sometimes get pretty big, and sometimes you can't interact with them without a mouse.

To me, I'd certainly like flash a lot, but more importantly I'd like a quick web browser. I mean, how many legitimate sites even use flash. The days of using flash everywhere has kind of passed and really, it seems like it's mostly used for annoying ads these days.

[amb9800 @ Jul 17th 2008 3:33PM]

Andrew, as a new iPhone user, you're still in that initial ooh-aah stage.

I've used an iPhone as my primary phone for the last six months and used Windows Mobile for 3.5 years before that.

My iPhone is jailbroken, unlocked, and all, and I have all the useful apps available installed (in a desperate attempt to make up for some of the phone's rather obvious functionality omissions). I use every aspect of it heavily, from the PIM side (Outlook syncing with thousands of contacts and calendar items) to media and internet browsing.

Based on my experience, I'll say this much: the iPhone's OS does manage processes better and in a more graphically smooth way than WinMo on devices with similar hardware. The iPhone is actually not very powerful by WM standards-- only a 400 MHz CPU (it's >600, but Apple keeps it clocked at 400 for heat/battery reasons) and 128 MB RAM.

Mobile Safari does look nice, and it's fun to use. That said, it's quite inferior to Opera Mobile in many key ways. The way the iPhone keeps its perceived speed is by letting apps keep very little in memory. As a result, if you open more than 1 or 2 tabs, Safari will clear out all the other tabs' sessions, which is _highly_ annoying, and along with the lack of copy-and-paste, a productivity kiler.

Mobile Safari is also very unstable and crashes quite often. I think one of the key reasons Jobs doesn't want Flash on here is that it'd make the browser even less stable than it already is. It lacks many key features, such as real tabbed browsing (you can't open links in a new tab), file downloads (part of the larger issue of the phone's inaccessible file system), and more. I use a JavaScript bookmarklet to somewhat take care of the tabbed browsing issue, but it's not a good solution.

I will probably be returning to the light side when Windows Mobile 7 comes out on a device with an iPhone-like form factor (think Samsung Omnia but with bigger, better, capacitive screen). WM7 is based on the CE 6.0 core, and based on what I know of CE6, it's been reworked under the hood in some very important ways. I hope MS implements a GPU-accelerated UI to match the iPhone's visual "smoothness."

[Andrew @ Jul 17th 2008 3:47PM]

amb9800: Those are some good points. Sometimes it comes down to what you use it for. Nothing will be perfect for everyone, and I understand that Safari has it's own issues, but from my experience, it's issues are much easier to deal with than Opera's.

I haven't gotten much into tabs yet since I don't do heavy web browsing on my phone, just one thing at a time, but I'd be willing to bet that even with Safari's quirks, Opera is probably just as bad or worse right now. WM memory management is terrible and once you start getting a few tabs of full websites open, you'll start building memory usage FAST. Just take a look at your desktop browser as you add tabs. I have 5 tabs open right now and have 150 MB used in Firefox. Smooth tabbed browsing is probably a while out on any mobile device simply due to lack of memory. The new HTCs with 256 MB will be some of the first to have enough memory to help this out.

Some other things like copy and paste aren't a big deal to me because I've rarely needed to copy and paste (though I suppose that no "open in new tab" thing would make that useful), and even if I was forced to type the whole address in, it would probably be faster than it would take to even open a new tab in Opera on WM.

Maybe it's exponentially faster on better devices like Tony said, but from what I hear, most people say Opera is still very slow on even fast devices.

I'm sure I will also be looking towards WM7 when it comes out. I'm a gadget nerd with no self control. I have high hopes for what MS can finally do when they actually put forth the effort to make WM a mainstream phone OS (because honestly nothing before was, it's a business phone, not meant for people who want a trendy touchscreen phone). Hopefully if they do come out with anything great it'll be on AT&T because I'm done with Sprint (and Verizon won't have the phone until a year later whenever anything does come out). That way I won't break my contract again, haha.

[SimbaDogg @ Jul 17th 2008 7:55PM]

@ Andrew

I love how you base all your opinions on all your experiences that you've had with the TWO handsets you've had. a mogul and now the iphone. From the way you described your "light usage" you def do should not be the person to even begin to critique one brand over another. Because i have used the opera browser to do quite a few things that you said you couldn't do, and have also used my phone to view flash videos. I even viewed the Ben Stiller pilot to "heat vision and jack" on my phone, and that is a 30 minute long youtube video. search for it, you'll find it. damn funny too

[loosely_coupled @ Jul 17th 2008 9:27PM]

HA? Are you kidding? Granted, this is an excellent option for WinMo phones, much much better than the steaming pile of shit that is Microsofts IE mobile.

But can this rival Mobile Safari??? HA! In your DREAMS buddy. Mobile Safari is actually fast and fluid, not incredibly laggy and slow like the video showed.

[Scott @ Jul 18th 2008 10:33AM]

I could truly care less about missing out on flash-based ads and craptastic flash-UI-only web sites (have these people heard web accessibility standards?), but I do wish mobile safari had that Open Link In New Tab option. I would rather open a link in a new tab then open a blank new tab, which is all I can do now.

[MMaster23 @ Jul 17th 2008 7:54AM]

I have this one for about a month .. little over a month now .. it sucks. It's slow, buggy and doesn't always load pages correct. And most custom non-WinMo virtual on-screen keyboard still don't properly. Nor do most physical keyboards. Text input is hell.

[fred @ Jul 17th 2008 8:20AM]

Have you ever tried the TouchPal virtual keyboard? After seeing it demoed on YouTube, I tried it and was blown away at how fast I typed on it myself.

[dj496 @ Jul 17th 2008 10:29AM]

+1 for TouchPal. It makes the iPhone keyboard look like a hassle to use!

[Unknown @ Jul 17th 2008 7:54AM]

Looks great but I wasn't able to find a download link for 9.5 they all kept linking to an 8 version. So I dugg around a little bit and found the 9.5 Beta link.

http://opera.nsc.no/winmobile/951b1/

I already have it running on my phone and it works great. A few bugs but hey it's still in beta. Looking great so far.

http://www.smoothdesigners.com/2008/07/17/opera-95-beta-for-windows-mobile/

[Tony @ Jul 17th 2008 8:23AM]

1) From what i read on the forums the leaked release that has been arround for a few months now was only an Alpha.

It was however very stable. so i've hight hopes that this will be even better.

ititial impression is that it's faster than the Alpha, but i havnt' found any sync with desktop like on opera mini. Thats a real shame! i love Bookmark sync makes my life with 4 different computers so much easier!

[Tony @ Jul 17th 2008 8:23AM]

1) From what i read on the forums the leaked release that has been arround for a few months now was only an Alpha.

It was however very stable. so i've hight hopes that this will be even better.

ititial impression is that it's faster than the Alpha, but i havnt' found any sync with desktop like on opera mini. Thats a real shame! i love Bookmark sync makes my life with 4 different computers so much easier!

[patrick @ Jul 17th 2008 8:23AM]

Question. Would this ever make it's way to iPhone? Just curious.

[Nomi @ Jul 17th 2008 8:42AM]

Who said it would?

[roli @ Jul 17th 2008 8:51AM]

I am writing this on the opera. I just downloaded beta and it is preaty good - but not perfect. Before I wa using iris brosser (based on webkit). An iris browser is better at displaying sites but opera is faster. I like it but what I want is a fast browser that oesn't crash every ten minutes and has a flash support. It is realy stupid that device like my hp ipaq can't play yotube videos and is slow like hell at opening web pages while it can play videos on my network without any problems (xvid videos). The biggest problem with mobile browsers is speed an I hope that opera will do something about that.

[Surur @ Jul 17th 2008 9:09AM]

No, the iPhone SDK bans 3rd party interpreters, like the excellent javascript interpreter in Opera Mobile.

[vincent @ Jul 17th 2008 9:24AM]

Much better the standard winmo browser, P.I.Ece o' crap. Now all we need from the MS platform is a little mulit-touch, 512/256, and 3.5" VGA action. Now that's what I'm talkin' about!

[Paul in Maryland @ Jul 17th 2008 9:48AM]

Well said, Vincent. Some shortcomings can be closed by software. Others can't, such as a VGA display...although the Nyditot virtual display may come close.

[Jason @ Jul 17th 2008 9:31AM]

That's one thin finger. Oh that's a stylus. No thanks.

Does it work with finger input?

[Ike Turner @ Jul 17th 2008 10:00AM]

Yes, But you'll have to get them out of Job's ass before

[Matt @ Jul 17th 2008 10:16AM]

This seems REALLY slow compared to opera mini. Pages either take a long time or I get an error message. I'm in an EVDO area of sprint using HTC Touch, any body else having problems or recommend a fix for me?

[Grant Pitel @ Jul 18th 2008 12:13PM]

Finally, a functional web browser for my phone (8525). Thanks Engadget for the tip.

[kgeissler @ Jul 17th 2008 2:23PM]

Looked good, except when I load gmail, I can't scroll the screen to the left or right. It will only scroll up and down.