Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta 1: 24 Hours Later
My initial impressions of Opera 9.5 Beta 1 was rather pleasant, no errors or problems on my part, save for those the developers already knew about (like no ActiveX) and I was rather happy with the application, for a beta 1 version that is.
Well it’s been just over 24 hours since I played around with this long-awaited browser and what do I think about it? More importantly, what do some of the users think about it? That’s what this article just aims to answer…
Saves Passwords
First the good stuff. It’s got the capability to save passwords. Now, I am not too sure if there is a mobile browser that does this but this is the first time I am seeing in Opera Mobile 9.5. For example, if you use it to log into your Gmail account, it will ask you if you want to save your password. Selecting Yes means that the next time you go to Gmail (provided you are not logged in), your credentials will be saved and you can choose it.
The Way It Does Passwords
It also has a rather interesting behavior when you are entering passwords. When you type a character of the password, it would show up for a second before being replaced with the default *. What’s great about this is that you can make sure you are entering the passwords, a mistake I make once too often when mobile browsing due to the SIP.
Others might say that this would make it easier for people to find uncover your password but then again, I am not one to log into my private and/or sensitive accounts (like banking) when there are strangers around me.
Default Browser
Now to some of the faults uncovered. Apparently selecting the option to make the Opera Mobile 9.5 your default browser does nothing. All links still open up in Pocket Internet Explorer as usual. Not too sure why this is so. Anyone encountering otherwise?
Slow Rendering
There have been users who mentioned that Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta 1 is slow for them on some sites but speedy on others. For example, spmwinkel notes that it takes him about 3 minutes to load up Gmail but mine does it in under a minute. He’s on the TyTN II while I’m switching between the ETEN Glofiish X500 and i-mate Ultimate 8502 for testing purposes.
At the moment, I am not too sure what’s causing these problems, but like most of the problems, I guess it’s all due to a lack of optimization this time around. It’s still beta 1 so I can’t really say much but hope that that’s why it is this way.
Out Of Space
For uses who are low on Main Memory, don’t expect to use Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta 1 for long periods of time or opening a lot of tabs. Again, this is all due to optimization (or the lack of this in the current version) so if it’s keeping you out, don’t lose hope yet. I did encounter this problem once so far but for the most part of it, things were going as expected for me. Then again, I was had about 40MB of Main Memory and ~35MB of Program Memory free.
Default SIP
This beta version of Opera Mobile 9.5 seems to have a liking for the default keybaord SIP. I initially did not notice this because I was using the Ultimate 8502 which has a hard QWERTY keyboard. However, using the Glofiish X500 does confirm this problem. Kinda reminds me of Skyfire.
No matter what your SIP is when you started Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta 1, when you try to enter a web address, it would default back to keyboard SIP. Switch it back to the SIP of your choice and the next time you call it up (within Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta 1 that is), it’ll default back to keyboard.
Hopefully the developers will be able to counter this quickly because I (and am sure many of you readers as well) consider rather integral to our browsing experience.
Conclusion
Personally, I’m making Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta 1 my default browser (even though as discussed earlier that is not possible, but you get the picture). Yes it is buggy and has it’s share of problems but so far, they do not affect me that greatly. Rendering and speed is pretty decent to me though I would be more than happy if they speed things up.
What are some of your experiences with Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta 1?
Added on 7/19/08: Reminders are disabled. Be sure to turn them back on or you’ll be missing notifications when your emails/text messages come in.
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I didn’t like that it cleared all of my reminders. I like this beta but it won’t go back on my device until that problem’s been solved.
If I remember earlier versions of Netfront used to save your user name and password but I haven’t seen that on their latest beta’s. Hopefully it will return when it’s finally launched.
You mean reminders from your PIM are removed?
Yes, the settings>sounds¬ifications boxes get unchecked and the reminders don’t occur. There were many complaints at the Opera forum yesterday and today about this. http://my.opera.com/community/forums/forum.dml?id=102
I just checked and I can confirm that reminders are disabled. I wondered why I missed a text message this afternoon!
Too many “biggies” for me to even consider this beta. I am sticking with the leaked HTC version.
Just noticed that myself. Looks like it’s being posted on the forum.
Hopefully I can reset it pretty easily.
I also noticed the SIP issue – what’s up with that?
Also, I can’t figure out how to set the Zoom level. I logged in to Google Reader and it zoomed all the way out. I could then zoom in, but couldn’t see how to zoom back out. Probably my own fault, but still not intuitive.
Maybe better, maybe not, but I’ll probably play with it for a little while longer to see what I can make work and what just doesn’t.
For me, to zoom out, I just double tap it again and it zooms out.
There’s a whole heap of stuff disabled, it’s a beta remember.
Memory optimisation should be the foremost fix!
Totally agree with you on that one Peter. Otherwise, it’s pretty much (unusable) for a lot of people.
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