Opera Mini 4 beta released; includes desktop-like browsing capabilities
24 CommentsPublished June 19th, 2007 6:51 AM EDT By Daniel Goldman
Opera today released a beta version of Opera Mini 4, code named ‘Dimension’, which includes a new desktop-like layout mode.
The main focus of Opera Mini 4.0 beta was to make mobile browsing easier and more in-line with traditional browsing on PCs.
New Desktop-like layout mode
Prior to this beta, Opera Mini only had one layout mode, called ‘fit-to-width’, which reformatted the webpages nicely to fit in a single column. The fit-to-width mode works fine on most pages. However fitting pages with intensive structures and complicated designs into a single column is not always the best option. Enter ‘PC View’ layout.
With ‘PC View’ layout (also known as ‘Desktop layout’), a thumbnail of the webpage, similar to what you would see on the PC/desktop browser, is first shown. Using the mouse cursor (also new in this beta) or a stylus you could select a region and instantly zoom in. (See screenshots below)
The immediate recognition of the pages with ‘PC View’ layout adds to the browsing speed on mobile phones. Navigating pages are also easier, since the menus and page content are in the same position as on the PC. The new desktop layout mode should also help in reducing some of the barriers to the adoption of mobile browsing.
Zoom
Zooming is done instantly, adding a pleasant effect to the experience. The zooming technology (called ‘Intelligent Zoom’) used in ‘PC View’ was first introduced by Opera for the Nintendo Wii browser.
When you’re zoomed-in, the text content is neatly reformatted to the size of your phone’s screen, thus eliminating the need to scroll horizontally.
Context menu
The new Opera Mini beta also adds a context menu, which is accessible by pressing the number ‘1’ key. From the context menu, you could quickly change between modes, reload the page, and view the page URL.
Mouse cursor
Also new with this beta is the addition of a virtual mouse cursor to make it easy to scroll in any direction. Navigating over a link, changes the cursor to the familiar hand pointer. Opera Mini now also highlights links in a visually appealing manner.
Power scrolling
The numbers ‘2’ and ‘8’ on the keypad act as ‘page up’ and ‘page down’, respectively. While the ‘4’ and ‘6’ buttons moves the cursor between columns to the left and right.
Rewrite of code
Opera Mini developers rewrote the entire code for the new beta and added lots of improvements to the rendering layouts. However, since it’s all being rewritten, not all features of Opera Mini 3 have been added yet, for example the RSS feed reader, content folding, etc.
Cache
Content that is shared between pages are now cached, adding to the browsing speed. For example, if you first load page A on a site, and then page B, and they share data/text/images, only the difference will be sent in page B.
New standards support
Support for HTML tables, CSS handheld stylesheets, and more advanced support for CSS have been added to Opera Mini. The smiley face on the Acid2 test is clearly recognizable; however it doesn’t pass the test just yet. We’re working on it.
Bi-directional support
With this new release we’ve also added support for bi-directional text, adding support for languages such as Hebrew.
Mobile browser choice
All of the new features and functionalities of Opera Mini further proves its claim to being the best browser option for mobile phones.
Download
(Download Opera Mini 4 beta to your phone - Download size only 90KB)
The Acid2 test on Opera Mini 4 beta
‘PC View’ – Desktop-like layout
Zoomed-in
Text content reformatted to fit screen width (when zoomed-in)
Highlighted links, with familiar hand pointer
Thumbnail view of page
Zoomed-in
Advanced CSS support (Credit: CSSZengarden)
Recognition of page (Credit: CSSZengarden)
using
Awesome! Also, if anyone noticed, there’s a new opera.com layout!
using
aaa, i have probleme with sonyericsson f500, with network test (with mini 3 good)
using
Really impressive! No more endless scrolling!
using
Great release, congratulations.
using
when you’re saying “desktop-like rendering” it means that everything is still rendered in columns that fit to the display I guess?
using
I am sorry but I am disappointed with the new version. The navigation feels like looking at a webpage through a keyhole. The zoom is awful; having to zoom in and out and in and out to find the content you want to see on a site. The picture compression is too hard and makes the overall experience blurry. I know it is a BETA so perhaps that is the reason that things like RSS, Click numbers to call, + fold/unfold large menus/content and SSL is missing. The navigation is horrible where do I switch back to normal mode? Remember this is not a desktop browser but a mobile web browser.
using
I love the new mini.
Now I never have to scroll over the first left menu column. It also work good with a stylus on M600.
I will probably use the new mini over the Opera mobile 8 preinstalled on my phone. It’s faster and cost me less. I will only use the preinstalled one to do complex tasks.
But they could have text size even smaller. On my M600 it is quite big(even at the smallest size), with smaller text I could see even more at a time.
using
Hi Daniel!
My guess about the reason behind the Dimension name was right: page zooming à la Wii Opera! Where’s my priz?
using
>The navigation is horrible where do I switch back to normal mode?
Press 1 on phone keyboard and set “Fit to width” mode.
using
My 3230 failed to launch the app *cries*
using
Hey… seems like a second battle of the web is beginning here, in the land of sub-laptop-sized devices, with different actors:
* Opera Mini
* Safari and WebKit
* Minimo (still waiting for it)
And still no IE yet, since they are busy working on fixing everything they have late in IE7 for… only Windows…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars
using
Oh wow. BiDi support? Well, it’s damn buggy.
But this is great news indeed – will report issues in the Opera Mini forums.
using
Hmm, great idea. I think the best surfing on small displays (or displays with low resolutions, like a TV) is a combination of SSR and this “intelligent zoom” as Opera Mini is doing now. You zoom into a part of a web page and SSR renders it so that I don’t need to scroll horizontally. It would be nice then to have different zooms to make text bigger or smaller. I wish Opera/Wii could do something like that, because when I surf to forums with Opera/Wii, the text is way too small to be readable.
using
Simply Beautiful.
using
Very nice beta. It works quite nicely on my k700i
using
@Nÿco
What about Deepfish?
http://operawatch.com/news/2007/03/microsoft-entering-the-mobile-browsing-market-too.html
using
This browser is amazing. I have already found a page that was impossible for me to view and now I can. I live in Seattle and use the public transportation which hosts it’s schedules online at transit.metrokc.gov and on ver. 3.1 the timetable would be all scrambled, but now with ver.4, it is easy to view. Great Job guys!! PS, I dont know why you got rid of the themes, I loved my black borders. Oh and if you guys could make it so you can move your start page bookmarks by priority, that would be awesome.
using
brian, the transit page uses tables, which wasn’t implemented yet with Opera Mini 3. The new beta added lots of support for HTML and CSS, including HTML tables.
Regarding the themes, many features and functionality that are available in Opera Mini 3 were not yet implemented in the new beta yet. Examples include: RSS feed reader, content folding, themes, etc.
using
I find the Opera Mini 4 beta a great browser, especially the new page overview feature. But I can’t help feeling that Apple iPhone’s Safari would be great too, thanks to the phone’s larger screen, and the freedom and ease of using one’s finger as a mouse.
using
i down loaded mini 4 betta but it did not work .what can i do
using
hi i just want to know if theres an option to “save target as” on opera mini..im currently using version 3.1 and i dont see one…its just that some files need that option when downloading…tnx hope u can help me..
using
Looks great.
But how to make zoom option works. It is something need to do during the page design or what?. Becuase i could not see any option to zoom in or zoom out
using
I really appreciate the effort, guys. Now I’m using opera’s version 3.1 and it’s great! A few things, though. Is it possible to download the Opera mini 4 beta to my computer? I have the cheapest plan and I have to pay a lot for downloads from my phone. That is also why I love Opera’s option of not downloading pictures as it saves me lots of money. As a huge nerd, I only need my phone to quickly look something up on wikipedia and impress my classmates.
Also, is it at all possible to get rid of the individual Yahoo! search bar (I also despise Microsoft and their non-open-source ness) ? Or, if not, add a Google search engine to the list of search engines? All help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Elektron
using
Great great work by the team. Hats off to them all. Unbelievable browsing experience on a handset. I’ve got a suggestion, and an issue:
1. As suggested by wupperbayer, multiple levels of zoom would be terrific. In order to have it work well with SSR would be a challenge though.
2. Mini 4 crashes after a minute or so on my O2 XDA Mini S, running WM6. Sometimes, the program hangs indefinitely, sometimes the phone simply freezes, permanently (atleast until a soft-reset). Since this is still beta, I’m still hoping the final version would be more stable on my phone, because I simply love this browser.