Thoughts On Opera Mini 5 For BlackBerry

Opera Software released the beta version of its Mini 5 browser earlier today, and I've spent a little time with it on my BlackBerry. Research In Motion fans will be happy to know there is finally a good browser for their favorite e-mailing machine.I only tested it on the Storm, as my Tour and Curve 8520 are not with me today, and Opera warned that the browser is not optimized for the device. While there are a few annoying little problems with the Storm version, it's still light years ahead of the on-deck browser, and loads better than something like Bolt. The speed just jumps out at you, as sites that normally kill mobile browsers (like Engadget's full version) loaded quickly. Our mobile site, of course, worked fine.

The speed dial feature brings up nine visual icons as bookmarks on a new tab, and it's similar to the startup page for Chrome. It's a simple little feature, but it does get you going to the sites you want to very quickly and easily. I did run into a few hang-ups with speed dial though, as one tab crashed as I was trying to add a new site.

One of the biggest new features of Mini 5 is strong support for touch screens, and the Storm's version is pretty nice. As you know by now, the Storm has that funky SurePress screen where you have to physically push down on it to register a click. Mini 5 gets around this, and you can just touch or tap the screen to bring up new menus or zoom in on pages. The scrolling is better than in previous versions, but still lacks that kinetic scrolling of the iPhone. The zooming has been spot on too - as it often zooms the correct amount I want, and relatively quickly.

Still, because it's not optimized for the Storm yet, keyboard input is a pain in the you know what. The virtual QWERTY keyboard has no auto-correction software, and it instead relies on a multi-tap input method. It's not a deal-breaker whatsoever, but it is kind of annoying. Overall, I'm pretty impressed with this thing, and you can download it directly from Opera's site.