Opera Mini for Android
The Android web browser that powers the T-Mobile G1’s web surfing experience is a mighty fine browser in its own right. The G1’s capacitance-based touchscreen (like that on the iPhone) makes navigating web-pages almost as smooth and easy as with the iPhone Safari browser. And, with speedy page-rendering times, the T-Mobile G1 isn’t lacking in the mobile web browser department.
But, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for competition. Following on word that Opera was working to port their proxy-server-assisted Opera Mini browser to the Android platform, the good folks from Norway have finally launched their browser-alternative through the Android Market. Opera Mini 4.2 for Android is now available for download and brings with it the usual fare – proxy-server parsed web surfing, skinning, bookmark sync, full-page view, and more.
Opera Mini 4.2 beta on the Android-powered T-Mobile G1 is everything you’d expect from Opera’s lean, mean web-parsing machine. Web pages load nice and fast. Web pages are processed through Opera’s proxy servers, so that page-rendering times are limited only by Opera’s super-fast servers. The proxy-servers push fully-rendered web-pages faster than any mobile browser tied to a handset’s CPU.
In the end, Opera Mini for Android requires a bit of getting used to, but with the speed and quickness that only Opera Mini can serve up, the Android browser has some tough competition in Opera Mini.