Opera is expanding its browser onto more platforms, but this time it’s going outside of the typical smartphone boundary. The company is releasing the Opera Mini 7 browser for feature phones with a flagship feature it calls Smart Page.
With Opera Mini 7 for feature phones, it appears Opera is targeting the people who are torn between a basic cell phone and smartphone. They don’t just use a feature phone for calling and texting, but they also don’t have an interest yet in downloading apps and music and paying top dollar per month for a smartphone. Opera Mini 7 is a great, free browser for folks who want a halfway decent browsing experience on their feature phone.
Smart Page is Opera Mini’s central hub that ties in the top news from your Facebook and Twitter feeds in a single, consolidated page. You can also add new feeds using Smart Page’s news site recommendations or by just inputting your own. Opera compresses a lot of this data, too, so you won’t have to pay too much for all the information its gathering.
I’m fond of Opera CEO Lars Boilesen’s explanation for the inventiveness behind the Smart Page name. “You just open the browser, and the content is right beside your Speed Dial shortcuts in the start screen for you to skim through — super practical, super time-saving and super smart. I guess that’s why the product team called it Smart Page,” he says. I guess so; there you have it.
Opera Mini 7 is a free download for Java-based, BlackBerry and Symbian S60 feature phones available at m.opera.com.