It's good news to hear that
Opera Mini
is finally available. I got it to work on my LifeDrive and here's a mini review.
Installation
Opera Mini can be downloaded from mini.opera.com (I actually used Blazer to download the file). However, this just downloads mini.prc and not the Java files that you need to run Opera Mini. For the instructions on how to install the Java files, I sought help from
Leslie Franke's site
.
Before everything else, on my LifeDrive, I went to Prefs>Other/IBM Java VM. I checked Use Double Buffering and Use high resolution coordinates. (Note: I remember that pressing the Home hard button while on this screen restarted my LifeDrive.)
Interface
Starting up Opera Mini will lead you to an internal start up screen where you'll see a URL box and a Google search box. Default bookmarks include Opera Mini, My Opera, Google, CNN, The New York Times, Bloglines, and MySpace.
The bottom menu bar has two selections: Menu and Back ("Back" only appears when you have gone to at least two destinations).
The Menu selection has the following self-explanatory and easy to understand choices:
Enter Address
Bookmarks
Home page
Tools
-History
-Settings
-Help
Exit
Browsing
Starting up Opera and clicking on CNN for example, will show a User Permission Check. This asks you about airtime use which is quite useful for mobile phones but really not vital if you're connected via WiFi.
Clicking Yes starts Opera Mini (although if you're not connected yet, the Palm Network Error window should kick in). After a brief delay, where you'll see the Processing animation box appear, the CNN site would load. I believe the delay is the result of Opera Mini's small screen rendering routine.
Some problems I've encountered are that images will not show at first load and blank areas sometimes show up.
Addendum: Opera Mini can now run in full screen in both portrait and landscape modes.
Navigation
The LifeDrive's 5-way button has the following default settings:
Up - Up to previous link
Down - Down to next link
Left - Page up
Right - Page down
This is a useful configuration especially if you're using a mobile
phone where one handed navigation is almost always necessary. It's also
useful in the LifeDrive and it's nice to see that after scrolling down
a page, using the up/down keys immediately selects any visible link in
that page.
There is a useful "Jump to text" in Menu>Tools>Settings which can solve this problem but you can still use the left and right nav keys to scroll up and scroll down respectively.
Also, a cool feature is tap-dragging where you can tap and drag to scroll the page. Just make sure you do not tap on a link before dragging.
Final Thoughts
It's good to see a new browser for the Palm platform. Although Opera Mini can load pages fast, these pages might not render properly (eg. missing images, blank page areas). If it's a trade-off between speed and proper rendering, I'd always choose proper rendering. This is where a full browser on Windows or OS X always becomes my first choice.
For mobility, there are pages out there that are optimized for PDAs. In my experience, going to these pages with Blazer on a LifeDrive or NetFront on a TH55/E is a much better experience.
I'm slightly bothered by Opera Mini's user interface. Though all of the features can easily be accessed, it takes some time to get used to a menu at the bottom of the screen. Also note that the command bar becomes disabled even if you are in the full screen URL input area.
In the end, these are just my own experiences with Opera Mini. Your experiences may vary and you might end up enjoying using Opera Mini. I'd love you hear your comments!
What I like:
-fast rendering
-5-way support
-tap-dragging
-full screen portrait/landscape
Rooms for improvement:
-user interface
-rendering problems
-disabled command bar
Further reading:
Opera Mini
Opera Mini FAQ
Opera Mini Forum
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