The best mobile browser has finally gone beta 2.0 ! We love the Opera Mini 4 Dimension browser for our non-touchscreen handsets – and the Opera team has just released their second beta. Dimension was initially released in beta form to much fanfare and anticipation. Our resident Nokia fanatic, Stefan, tested the hell out of the Opera Mini 4 Dimension beta and came away quite pleased. Although, he did have a few suggestions for future versions of the mobile browser – and those suggestions didn’t fall on deaf ears. The Opera Mini team has been hard at work to add a few missing features, accomodate community suggestions, and bring more innovation to the Opera Mini platform.
According to the Opera Mini team’s blog, the new Opera Mini 4 Dimension beta 2 (we love long names) brings:
- Landscape mode – change the screen’s orientation to make viewing wide web pages more convenient
- Multi-search Start Page – your one-stop page with all your favorite search engines ready to scour the web for whatever you want
- Custom search engines – just like the full-fledged desktop Opera browser, you can customize your search preferences to your tastes and needs
- Exclusive BlackBerry support -the new Opera Mini beta includes many enhancements for our BlackBerry users including better menus and a new user interface
Head on over to Opera’s download page and hit up the new Opera Mini 4 Dimension beta 2 (we just had to say it again, we love long, technical names).
Oh, and here’s the full change log from the Opera Mini team blog:
- Now you can add the search engine of your choice to the start page, just like in the Opera desktop browser. Hey, now you could put Google Search on the start page.
- Shortcut keys
- Browse in landscape mode — view the Web on a wider screen (Shortcut key: ‘#’ and ‘*’)
- Native menu for BlackBerry phones
- Lots of optimizations for BlackBerry phones
- Content folding – Collapses long menu lists (like those found on sidebars of webpages), so you don’t need to scroll through them to get to the page content. Note: This only works in “Fit to width” mode, not desktop.
- Supports secure connections for banks, eBay
, etc.
- Small fonts have been enabled
- Simplified setup process
- Improved image quality
- Improved cookie support
- Ability to edit the current URL
- Added ‘Full screen’ mode
- Dialogs now use web 2.0-ish look and feel
- Added support for more phones
- Fixed a ton of bugs
Opera is committed to bringing us the best possible mobile web browser, and as such, they’ll be releasing another beta to work out all the bugs and what not before Opera Mini 4 Dimension goes final.