Skyfire 2.0 beta for Android video preview!

We just spent a few minutes playing with the beta version of Skyfire 2.0 for Android that was released today, and we'll cut to the chase: this is easily the best browser we've used on the platform. Clearly we'll need to spend more time with it to make sure it can handle all the typical sites you'd want to visit while you're on the road -- but loading the desktop version of Engadget is always a great barometer for this sort of thing, and this browser rocked it. Rendering is about as reasonably fast as you can expect it to be (on our Snapdragon-powered Nexus One, anyhow), and everything we saw displayed spot-on perfect (save for embedded Flash, of course), but if you're in a situation where you don't need to see the full page or it looks screwy, you can toggle it to send an Android user agent right from the app's toolbar below the URL field. It works just about as well as Steel and the built-in browser on a G1 we tested, and Flash videos work just fine there as well.

The browser touts compatibility with Flash videos, too, so we headed over to YouTube to try our hand at it; it immediately detected the presence of a video and popped up the so-called "SkyBar" at the bottom of the screen, where you can press the Video button to load the video in a new window. It doesn't work embedded in the page, but considering how small your phone's screen is, that's really for the best -- you get the full-screen experience, and in our testing, it looked fantastic. One downside is that you don't seem to be able to scrub videos while they're playing, but maybe this is something these guys can get patched up for the final release. Follow the break for our full video!

Update: One annoyance we've noticed is that pinch-to-zoom works in "steps" -- it's not smooth, which makes it pretty weird to use, but remember that Opera Mini doesn't support it at all.

[stabbytheicepic Posted Apr 29th 2010 5:47PM]

Hulu has an issue with it.

[Ardroid Posted Apr 29th 2010 6:22PM]

Dope.

[Meow Mix Posted Apr 29th 2010 6:40PM]

@TareG
I agree. I love the browsing experience on my incredible.

[Niteperson Posted Apr 29th 2010 6:40PM]

I'm not sure what's going on, but I can't exit Skyfire. Hitting the back button does nothing, and there is not menu option. Am I missing something?

[merikdewye Posted Apr 29th 2010 6:57PM]

@TheLondonExchange Yes and that gives us more browsers to choose from -- which I think is great.. Fennec impressions. http://j.mp/android-fennec

[jarredWilliams1 Posted Apr 29th 2010 7:39PM]

I couldn't get flash to work still... help?

[keyl10 Posted Apr 29th 2010 11:01PM]

@Evan

Really? I think Safari > Android browser.
Most things work except for flash on Safari.

I must admit though that I am in love with this work-around. The only thing I would want flash for would be videos, and that is exactly what this offers!

[bombastinator Posted Apr 29th 2010 11:20PM]

HULU: Fail. Possibly intentionally. It didn't break, I got a you can't do that screen. HULU may be blocking handhelds in preperation for the whole "make you pay" B.S.

Megavideo: Win! chunky looking but it plays. To hell with HULU.

ABC: Fail. Got a completely different and very blurry error message this time.

I'll try some of the other video sharing sites, we'll see how it goes.

[phuz Posted Apr 29th 2010 11:25PM]

flash video yay!

to bad hulu blocks it.

[swinepunk Posted Apr 29th 2010 11:42PM]

Very low res UI on the Droid.

[DIGGDEEP Posted Apr 30th 2010 12:39AM]

This is awesome!
Another reason I am proud to be a DROID owner.

DRROOOIIIIIID!!!!!!

[Johnny Rockets Posted Apr 30th 2010 1:21AM]

Yet another reason Android > iPhone!

DROOOOID

[b0rndead Posted Apr 30th 2010 1:28AM]

I can't find it on my german desire - is there still trouble with copyright stuff? I scanned the code on their homepage and searched manually and got no matches...

[Air Force One Posted Apr 30th 2010 2:02AM]

I just watched the video review on my nexus using skyfire! This is so cool! you can watch hubble space telescope videos at national geographic! :)