The guys on wapreview.com did a nice review of the Opera Mini browser. For those who don't know, Opera Mini is a Java version of the Opera browser that uses a proxy server to do some of the heavy lifting. The benefits of this approach are significant:
- The proxy can compress a lot of the normal HTTP traffic meaning that data charges are reduced
- The proxy can take some of the rendering & parsing load off the browser, meaning that the 100Kb J2ME browser runs on almost any phone, despite being more functional than most other phone browsers
I personally use the Mini browser for about 95% of browsing, even when I am using a widescreen device like the Nokia 9300, or a 3G device with a "full" browser, such as a Nokia N80. Why? Aside from all the other advantages, the usability is what does it for me. Opera Mini does a few things better than any other phone browser that I know of:
- It lets you traverse back and forth between previously visited pages instantly. This alone transforms the mobile experience because the simple process of going back a page is normally a painful thanks to network latency
- Opera Mini lets you scroll up and down the page very quickly, page at a time. For some reason this simple functionality is missing from a lot of browsers, but is becoming more and more necessary as mobile pages become longer
- The Opera Mini start page is useful -- it behaves like a mini portal, showing you recently visited sites, bookmarks etc.
