The core difference between two mobile browser versions is how Opera Turbo is handled in the browser. Opera Turbo is Opera’s compression service that reduces the size of web pages by sending the data through an Opera server where they are compressed before they are send to the user’s mobile device.

Smaller data packages means faster page loading times and a reduced bandwidth bill for users who pay by the Megabyte.

Opera Mini 6.5 is now available for new devices (The Android version has been out for a few weeks) including Apple iOS, Symbian, Blackberry and J2ME devices. The big new feature in Opera Mini 6.5 and Opera Mobile 11.5 is a new data counter that allows mobile users to keep tabs on their bandwidth usage. While that may not be exciting for users with flatrates, it may very well make a big difference for consumers who pay by the Megabyte (or capped data plans).

Other improvements include stability and performance fixes, better text selection and auto-correct and spell-check support for iOS devices. Interested users can read up on all the changes at the official Opera Mini blog post.

A blog post over at the Opera Mobile blog informs users about the changes in the release (please note that Opera Mobile 11.5 has been available for some time for Android based devices on the Android Market)

Opera Mobile 11.5 introduces the data usage view on Symbian devices. The new version benefits from an Opera Presto rendering engine upgrade as well.

Opera Mobile users on Symbian devices can access the changelog here. Symbian users can point their browsers to m.opera.com to download the latest version of the Opera Mobile or Opera Mini browser. Browsers may also be available in the Apple App Store and on Android Market.

First of, what’s the difference between Opera Mobile and Opera Mini? The core difference is the location of the browser engine. For Opera Mobile 11, the browser engine is located on the mobile device, for Opera Mini, it is located on the Opera server. Opera Mini 6 usually displays websites a lot faster than Opera Mobile does, thanks to the fact that it does not tax cpu and memory that much, and that all data is compressed before it is send to the phone.

The second difference is compatibility. Opera Mini works on nearly every mobile device, Opera Mobile 11 on the other hand has been released only for Android and Symbian, with the possibility that additional devices will be supported in the future (Lab versions are available for Maemo, MeeGo and Windows).

Here is a short video demonstrating some of the capabilities of Opera Mini 6 and Opera mobile 11.

Opera Mobile 11 sports a new modernized user interface that has been optimized for tablet devices. Rendering technologies have been updated with a new Presto rendering engine, better JavaScript performance and support for popular technologies such as HTML5 Video, Adobe Flash support (Android only) and multi-touch events.

Zooming has been improved in several ways, text should for instance stay sharp during zooming. New social networks sharing options have been introduced, as well as a session restore feature and faster framerates when panning and zooming.

A full list of features is available at the Opera Mobile blog.

The list of feature additions is a lot smaller for Opera Mini 6. The mini browser supports a fresh new look and similar content sharing options. The browser supports the popular Youtube video platform now with options to play the Youtube videos on the device’s native media player.

Add to that better font support, an option to open links in the background, improved zoom for touchscreens and a design that has been specifically designed for tablet use.

Opera Mini 6 can be downloaded directly on your phone at http://m.opera.com/. Users who prefer to download it to their PC instead can download Opera Mini 6 from the official website.

Android users can point their browsers to Opera Mini and Opera Mobile on the Android Market

Today Opera Software announced the approval of Opera Mini for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch devices. The Opera Mini application is available for download in Apple’s App Store.

One of the main advantages of the Opera Mini browser is a feature called Opera Turbo which compresses the data before it is send to the mobile device. This not only speeds up the web browsing experience (especially on slower networks) but reduces the bandwidth costs of the user significantly.

Iphone and iPod users can download Opera Mini directly from their mobile devices or by opening the Appstore in iTunes to download it instead.

• Sleek design — Opera Mini 5 features a new, intuitive and advanced look and feel.
• Tabbed browsing — This desktop favorite is now available for Opera Mini. Tabs allow users to browser several sites simultaneously. This helps users easily jump from one page to another with the click of a tab.
• Touchscreen or keypad browsing — Opera Mini caters to the needs of your phone, offering optimal browsing for both touchscreen and keypad-based phones.
• Password manager — Opera Mini is a virtual memory bank, securely saving all passwords for e-mail, social-networking sites, online banking and more.
• Speed Dial — This is our take on a table of contents for your Web adventure. Opera’s Speed Dial will greet you with your pre-selected Internet favorites upon loading the browser.

The Opera developers have released a video that demonstrates the functionality of Opera Mini 5.

Mobile users who are interested in testing the new Opera 5 Mini web browser can point their mobile devices to m.opera.com/next to download it directly from the device or to the download page at the Opera website to download it to their PC.

Opera Turbo has been designed for computer systems with limited bandwith. Users with fast connections will see no huge differences in the speed that the websites are displayed but will notice a traffic reduction thanks to the compression. Users with limited bandwidth on the other hand will notice both a website loading improvement and traffic reductions.

The layouts of websites that are accessed with Opera Turbo will look exactly like they did before. The major difference is that image resolutions may appear lower which can be attributed to the compression. Please note that text and other elements are also compressed.

Encrypted traffic will not be routed through the Opera compression servers. This means that accessing your bank’s website, PayPal or any other website that is using the SSL protocol will make use of direct connections.

Please note that Opera 10 with Turbo is still in alpha stage. Opera Turbo will display an icon in the Opera status bar that is giving the user indications whether it is enabled or disabled. It will also display the average compression ratio as an icon and the saved Megabytes when hovering over the Opera Turbo status bar icon.

Opera Turbo builds up on the experience that the Opera development team gathered during the development of Opera Mini. The new service will be officially announced at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. The information that can be gathered from the available whitepaper suggests a broader service that allows businesses to run Opera Turbo servers which will manage the compression for their clients. Internet traffic will be routed through Opera Turbo servers which compress it and send it to the clients. The browsers on the client side will also compress any data before it is send to the Opera Turbo server which unpacks it before it is send to the actual destination.

According to the whitepaper Opera Turbo will be able to compress network traffic by up to 80%. The benefits of Opera Turbo should be obvious. The service will save businesses bandwidth, speed up web surfing for clients and reduce costs thanks to the reduced bandwidth requirements. The main Achilles’ heel of Opera Turbo is the requirement to use Opera software to make use of the technique. Opera currently has a web browser market share of about 1% which means that about 99% of all Internet users will probably never be able to test Opera Turbo. Existing Opera users on the other hand might be able to benefit from Opera Turbo as Opera has the intention to utilize the technique into the Opera web browser and Opera mobile browser.

Pritesh pointed out that there is a way to run the Opera Mini browser on a normal computer by following instructions found on the Java on Mobile Devices website. It’s a bit complicated but doable for anyone with a technical understanding.

A user basically needs to download the Java SE Development Kit (JDK), the Sun Java Wireless Toolkit 2.5.2 for CLDC, the OperaMiniLargeDevice configuration created by the author and obviously the Opera Mini Browser.

Start by installing the JDK and the Wireless Toolkit afterward. Now extract and move the OperaMiniLargeDevice folder to the wtklib\devices path of the Wireless Toolkit and choose it as the default service in the start menu. Now run Run MIDP Application from the same start menu entry which will load Opera Mini if you select the JAD file that you have downloaded earlier.

The author provides two additional screen resolutions that provide support for the Asus EEE PC and the HTC Shift. The latest updated files are available at this post.

The main advantage of using Opera Mini is the compression in my opinion and probably the low resource usage of the browser. Setup is slightly complicated but once everything is running you can be sure that you are using a low resource and low bandwidth browser, probably as low as it can get.