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In case you missed it, there is a copy of Opera Mobile 9.5 on xda-developers.com.  Having heard about the new HTC Touch Diamond’s Opera Mobile 9.5, which comes with Opera Mobile 9.5 pre-installed, I have been anxiously awaiting a release of Opera Mobile 9.5.  Obviously this is not the official release; its merely a copy and paste (with a few edits) of the software that comes with the HTC Touch Diamond.  It is great to test it out, but you must keep in mind this was made for a specific device (which isn’t the one we are using) and it is quite unstable for the tilt at this point.  Having said that, I now have a good idea what Opera Mobile will be like when it is officially released.

At last we see a true browser for the Windows Mobile platform.  First off, zooming is similar to all those darn iPhone commercials you see, double tap to zoom in, again to zoom closer, and again to zoom out.  Just like the iPhone, full websites can be viewed properly, no ugly “mobile versions”.  As pictured below,  NY Times and iGoogle both display properly unlike most (if not all) other mobile browsers I have tried.  Also, tabbed browsing has been perfected to the way it should be on a mobile device.  The menu bars, both top and bottom disappear after about 3 seconds to give a full screen view and optimize webpage viewing space on the small screen.  To bring back the menu just tap the little button in the lower right hand corner and poof they are back, no noticeable lag.

Officially 9.5 has full flash and java support but that is a bit limited at this time.  Most of the iGoogle java script stuff worked fine with the exception of dragging objects (but I wouldn’t expect that from a mobile browser).  Just for kicks I gave Gmail a shot and as anticipated the full fledged webmail client didnt load and I was forwarded to the basic HTML page.  For flash support… well its a bit harder to explain, Opera Mobile 9.5 works with FlashLite 3.0.  What is wrong with that? FlashLite3.0 is not available for Windows Mobile yet.  The current FlashLite2.1 does not work with Opera mobile; the page loads but leaves a blank spot where the flash object should be.  So in theory, flash support worked the way it should (…I think).  There are rumors saying that a copy of FlashLite3.0 may be available with the official Opera release.  Finally Opera Mobile 9.5 will be supporting Widgets, this should be a great feature.  I can imagine thousands of uses for mobile browser widgets.

As mentioned in previous posts, the official Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta will be available on July 15.  Until then I would just stick to Opera Mini if you want to get anything done (I didnt go into detail on the cons, but the tilt keyboard doesnt work right) otherwise you will be wasting your time.

a WinMo browser at the same level as Safari Mobile, finally

full NY Times, no toolbars	full NY Times, with toolbars
iGoogle, no toolbars	iGoogle full, with toolbars
iGoogle zoomed, no toolbars

Ryan (8 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook