Opera 9.5 Mobile Beta 2

The Opera development team seems to be doing their thing opposed to other browser developers who are more focused on the competition. The team released the second beta of the upcoming Opera 9.5 mobile browser yesterday which can be currently downloaded and tested but is supposed to be a commercial product once it is released in its final version. The current version Opera 8.65 is available for €19 at the Opera online store and this is probably the same price range that users can expect of Opera 9.6 mobile unless the Opera sales team would decide that they had to reduce the price because of the competition of the new Firefox mobile browser.

The new Opera 9.5 beta 2 is currently available for Windows Mobile and Symbian UIQ. A release for Symbian S60 phones is planned for 2009. The biggest new feature in this version is the mobile widgets support. Users should not confuse mobile widgets with widgets in desktop versions of Opera because they work and act different which is mainly caused by the limited screen space of mobile phones.

Widgets for Opera mobile are basically one click services that either open a function or website directly. Only a few widgets are currently available including a clock, Twitter or weather information.

Other additions are a new Zoom slider and some user interface and usability improvements in addition to many under-the-hood fixes in the browser core. It is a good time now to test the new Opera mobile browser if you have a mobile device running Windows Mobile or Symbian UIQ.

Update: You can always download the latest version of Opera Mobile and Opera Mini from the website linked above. Note that the browser has been updated several times since our review, so do not be surprised if the version is higher than the one listed here.