Opera is one of my favorite companies, ever. Because of their Opera Mini product I decided to purchase a smartphone, the Nokia E61, not because it ran Symbian, but because it had a 320 x 240 pixel resolution screen, had WiFi, and it let me see more of the internet. This was back in 2006 when American 3G was still a joke, and the iPhone was a year away from launch. I blogged about that device, a lot, and about Nokia, and because of it I got a job at IntoMobile in June 2007, found myself in Finland a month later, and then eventually found a job within Nokia.
After I was let go by Nokia in April 2009, a friend of mine said I should talk to a friend of his at Opera. We had our first interview in Helsinki, and then a second in Oslo, Norway [Disclosure: flight + hotel was paid for by Opera]. I really wanted to work on the Opera Mini team, but unfortunately I didn’t get the position.
Still, that doesn’t change how much I love the product, and the company itself. I’ve always been, and always will be, a notorious Opera Mini fanboi. While I was attending University, I’d often show my fellow students a few demos, and go so far as to install the application on their devices whether or not I had their permission. Which is why I’m a little sad to see this screenshot appear on http://www.opera.com/mobile/features/
That’s beautiful, crisp, clear, but it’s not real. Here’s what The New York Times really looks like with Opera Mini 5 Beta for Android:
This is with graphics quality set to high, and the font cranked down to small. Notice how “Try Times Reader 2.0” appears all the way on the right side in Opera’s official shot, yet it’s on a different line all together with Opera Mini Beta 5 running on my Nexus One. Also look at how the official shot has the “Last Update: 5:16 AM ET” fit on one line, while my time doesn’t even appear. The text “Home Page” is black in the official photo, yet blue in my version.
Is there some custom super small font option that’s hidden from users? Are you just rendering these official shots in Photoshop? I was one of the fortunate people who got to see Opera Mini run on an iPhone in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress, and it looked way better than the Android version does today. I know the Android version is still in beta, so I have high hopes that it will eventually be on par with the other platform specific versions, but these font rendering issues I’ve highlighted are really frustrating. Maybe it’s because the stock browser in Android 2.1 is just so damn good?
I don’t really know, I just hope it gets fixed.