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I’ve been running around with Opera 4 beta on my Nokia 6630 since it launched yesterday. I must definitely have been in the first few hundred of the lot to have downloaded it…

And boy, Am I pleased!!! The feature set is awesome, the app is very lightweight compared to its predecessor the Opera Mini and has a kewl set of features. In this post I try to review the product and look at how it fits to the “running-around-a-lot-with-my-smartphone” kind of a user.

To start off, the Opera 4 beta will be referred to as O4 through the rest of this post.

O4 beta is a J2ME application just like the mini. It installs alongside the existing J2ME version without disturbing it at all. But nevertheless, I definitely have to mention that it is WAAAAY lighter than the previous versions. On that note, I will however contradict my statement with an addition that you still cant run heavyduty Symbian apps or J2ME apps with this guy running on the phone…

Mp3 works after an initial stutter, video doesnt. Otherwise, it is still definitely lighter than the previous version. Faster startup and shutdown times are also to be noted.

Now, coming to the feature set of the O4 “Dimension”, this application has a few wannabe features that people have always wanted on mobile browsers:

• Zoom in browsing: This is the feature that S60 3rd edition browsers have. Look at a page, from the birds eye view, choose a section to zoom in, and move into the section and do your work. “5″ is the key that does the job. Now, this feature on every S60 mobile capable of MIDP2.0… which is almost every damn smarty in the market…
• Mouse cursor: Long time never see pal… The cursor is finally there on non S60-3rd Edition phones. This is a real boon for people who browse the net on the move. As simple as Point and click. Now, My 6630 can do pretty much what the Symbian 9.x phones can…
• Fast Panning of a page: Keys 2, 4, 6 and 8 allow fast panning in the top, left, right and bottom directions respectively. The pan is amazingly smooth and slides like nothing else… This is a very good feature to use when in the Zoom-in mode where the whole page is not in view.
• Integrated Yahoo Live OneSearch: Quite good. But I would presonally prefer Google. The Symbian version gives you google by default.
• Bookmarks: This still stays from the previous versions sans the RSS. The Add / Edit / Delete a.k.a. Bookmark Management feature is smooth and Fast.
• Pagination / Scrolling: Everything scrolls across smoothly. Any window transition is a scroll. And it is really smooth, which makes my mobile look space age…
• And then theres all the old features carried over… with more speed of-course!!!

What the O4 Dimension misses out:

• Still No Password saving: Hope they bring in this feature like the Symbian counterpart. The password saving feature would be a real boon.
• RSS Feeds: Where did they go??? Are they leaving it out or would they put it into the final release is a question I’m awaiting an answer for. I really loved that feature. Your personal pocket based RSS feed reader… Kewl enough to catch up on news!!!
• Image Quality: The O4 gives an option to increase image quality. This has to however be manually activated. In as-much-as I do appreciate Opera’s quest for browsing speed, I strongly feel that the compromise on the image quality has taken a bad beating. The image quality could be marginally improved.
• No Flash Yet: This is a feature that is still expected on Symbian. So, I guess the Mini series would never have it in the near future…
• Skinning: Will this be integrated in the Final release??? Opera, please answer this. I prefer the black skin to the wine-red!

There are still some more add-ons I guess have to be added. Like figuring out how Opera behaves with Orkut. Noting the fact that Orkut opens in the O4 Dimension with absolute ease. The scrap / more friends / et. al. links which are actually images are not recognized by this guy…

In conclusion to this rather long post, “Two Thumbs Up! ” for this amazing piece of software. One instance where J2ME beat Symbian in the race to User Interfaces and User Interaction… Way to go guys… Opera Still Rocks…

And I’m waiting for the final release of this bad boy!!! Definitely worth investing in GPRS in India when you have O4 around!!! This is the new Dimension to browsing.

This is what mobiles have become!!!

Update: Correction for mentioning Yahoo OneSearch as Yahoo LiveSearch. Thanks to Daniel from Opera for the mention… And yeah, his comment down below states all the hotties in the next package… I’m waiting!!!

Tags: OperaMini, Dimension, Beta, Symbian, Series60, Nokia, 6630, Review