I’ve fallen in love hard, Opera Mini 3.0 got released today, here is a review

I’ve been using Opera Mini since it first came out and it’s amazing to see how far they’ve come in such a short amount of time. As a T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) customer I have unlimited GPRS for less than $10 a month, and I’ve been using this browser on my, now dust collecting, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) 3220 for as long as I could remember. It wasn’t the snappiest piece of kit, but boy was I happy I could read Engadget on the go. Numerous intellectual debates got settled thanks to Wikipedia in my pocket. To say the least me and Opera Mini have had some great memories. Then I got a new phone …

I’ve had my Nokia E61 for less than a month now, and I must say, the built in browser is stunning. Congratulations Nokia. The faster processor in my new device makes websites render pretty quickly on GPRS and even snappier on Wifi. I felt no need to try out third party browsers, but my curiosity always gets the best of me. For less than a week now I’ve been on the 30 day free trial of Opera for Mobile Devices. I love the fit to screen feature that mimics the default rendering of Opera Mini, the download manager, and the fact that it renders some websites that would cause the default Symbian browser to crash and burn. Now Opera for Mobile Devices is in a different league feature wise, and that’s why you have to pay for it. This review however is for Opera Mini, a freeware application that works on practically any phone out there. I like screenshots, so I took a lot of them to share with you. Words can only go so far. Are 50 or so screenshots enough?

Ok first thing is first, you need to get the damn application on
your phone. That took me a short while to figure out. The default
Symbian browser renders http sites, not WAP. So if you have a Nokia
device running Symbian Series 60 version 3 follow these instructions:

Click menu and go to the Media button

Hit services, this is the WAP browser on your phone

Type in mini.opera.com

Hit download

Confirm

A security warning pops up, the application isn’t trusted. Trust me when I tell you to trust it.

The details appear and you’ll see the latest version that just got released today: 3.0

Choose where you want to install it, I always put things onto the
phone memory to decrease latency and I figure it saves power if I’m
reading off the built in flash than another piece of flash on a
different bus

After it installed, you’re ready to lock and load. Go to your
installations folder and open her up by click “Opera Mini.” For
demonstration purposes I selected Gmail because the green background
behind the red Opera logo looked horrible. I believe a beautiful icon
can enhance the user experience, so there it is in all its glory. Not
as nice as the “Opera” logo, but like I said before, the version you
pay for is custom tailored for your phone. They obviously increased the
resolution on that one.

Opera will tell you to hit some buttons randomly to improve security … ok whatever just do it. Takes less than 5 seconds

Next you have to configure how your phone connects to the network

Obviously grant Opera Mini permission to transmit data

Setup is complete! Excuse the GPRS logo in the top left corner.
Blame Nokia for that one; don’t know why they have such a huge data
transfer indicator icon

This is what you see when you first open up the application. The top
text box is your URL input, the next text box is a Google (NSDQ: GOOG) search, and
the last is a custom search engine configuration text box, more on that
later. It uses Wikipedia by default, perfect for the college student
like me. Then under all that you have your bookmarks, but the Feeds
button is what gets my blood pumping. If you don’t know what RSS is,
think of it as black tar heroine for an Internet news junkie. The net
comes to you; you no longer go to the net.

Once you try to click any of the icons, as I just pushed the Feeds
button, you will be presented with a EULA, I didn’t read it, you’re not
going to read it, just hit next

These are the default feeds included. Why oh why do they have to be
so dull? Why couldn’t they include Engadget, Joystiq, Gizmodo, Google
News, Yahoo News, CNN, the list goes on and on and on. First
impressions count

Remember that third text box I told you about? That lets you do a
search on any search engine you use? Well here are the default options:
Wikipedia (default), Dictionary, and Google News

When you hit add or remove however you’re presented with this menu,
look at all those, I’m impressed. However what is Weather Underground?!
Where is IMDB? What about Amazon.com? The list is very nice, but I want
even more options.

I’ve added Google Images and Technorati, two search engines I use daily

Now when you click the text box to enter a URL you’re presented with
this user interface. Why have a separate dialog box pop up is beyond
me. Do you know a URL that is longer than 396 characters? Why can’t I
just start typing away in the text box on the start page like I would
type into a text box on my computer?

So what does a website look like on this thing? Well let me go to this wicked website I’ve been hearing about lately, Ring Nokia

Hmm what can that little RSS 1.0 button be telling me to subscribe, let me click it

A preview of an RSS feed? How nice! Let me scroll down and see what
other content this feed has … He hates real player too?! Subscribed!

Now my subscription is added to the Feeds menu

What about the user interface? Well let’s hit menu. I like it, very clean, not a lot of options, only one submenu called tools

The tools submenu allows me to access my History Settings and Help

These are all the sites I’ve been to

These are the settings. Not too many, but it’s nice to be able to customize things. This is the top half of the settings menu

Now I scroll down to reveal the rest

So there are skins? Nice I like to customize somewhat, let’s check them all out

Pink

Dark

Snow

Classic

I can also change font sizes. The default size is medium. Here is how Engadget looks in small

Medium (default size; the one I prefer)

Large (old people will love this!)

And when you need to read your screen from 6 feet or more away, Extra Large!

Ok what about another portion of Engadget, how does it look? Look a Nokia article!

Ok I’m an Engadget addict, so let me subscribe

Nice to see it in my Feeds list

There is one thing that I hate more than anything, and I think you
will too. MMS fees! Carriers are going insane with the amount of money
they charge you to send pictures or movies. I want to use Gmail to send
emails and save myself the headache, and the 25 cents. Now the basic
Gmail loads so I’m happy! This happiness however quickly turns to
sadness as I try to send myself a test message and I can’t get the
attach button to work. In Opera for Mobile devices, as well the built
in browser on S60v3 phones, the attachment function works perfectly. If
you’re using Opera Mini however … sorry, maybe version 4.0

Now that Nokia World is going on I want to subscribe to the official
blog that has all the coverage. What happens when I try to go to the
Nokia “From the Floor” blog? It can’t render it. However it detected the RSS feed!

The preview feed works perfectly, so I’ll subscribe

And now I can check up on my favorite little company anytime

So what do I think about Opera Mini?

But seriously, what do I really think about Opera Mini:

This application is brilliant. If your phone does Internet, then
this application should be the first thing you install, period. I know
I sounded negative in my review to a lot of small things, but that is
because small things make or break an application. I am hoping that
buzz will generate about this review and the developers at Opera will
check it out and take my ideas into suggestion.
The UI is snappy;
the rendering is mind boggling fast. Here is how it works: Your data
request goes to Opera who then fetches the information you want,
compresses it, and then sends it back to you. When you are on GPRS,
which let’s be honest folks, isn’t the fastest thing in the world,
Opera Mini can have you surfing your favorite sites with the same
feeling you would have on a 3G network.
How do they manage to do
this for free is beyond me. I can’t emphasize enough, this application
is free, and there is no reason why you shouldn’t have it.
Congratulations to Opera for this amazing piece of work, I’m going to
be putting this on all my friends phones tomorrow when I get back on
campus. I’m not even joking folks. It’s that good.