Opera Mobile 9.5 beta 2: Now with widgety goodness

Filed under: Windows Mobile, Symbian, Mobile Minute, Browsers

Opera has released the second public beta of Opera Mobile 9.5. There are two major changes since the last beta release. First, Opera Mobile 9.5 is available for Symbia UIQ as well as Windows Mobile devices. And second, the browser now supports Opera Widgets.

Widgets for mobile devices don't necessarily work the same way as widgets on a full sized computer. You can't fit a bunch of widgets on a 2 or 3 inch screen at the same time the way you can with desktop widgets. So what exactly is an Opera Mobile Widget?

Basically, it's a one-click web application. Rather than launching your mobile web browser and navigating to a page, you can click a widget icon and access a web page or application designed to work well with the Opera Mobile browser. Right now there 5 widgets available, including a clock, weather app, and Twitter application. The advantage of using widgets instead of bookmarks is that you can save the icons on your home screen or in a widget directory and you can access them with a single click.

Opera Mobile 9.5 also features the ability to view the full desktop version of web pages or zoom in for a closer look, much as you can do with Safari for the iPhone or the Google Android web browser.

The browser is free while in beta. No word on when the final version will be released, but there's a good chance that it will cost about $30 when it is available. That's the price Opera typically charges for its mobile browser. Of course, if Mozilla manages to push out Firefox mobile before then, Opera might feel the need to drop the price a bit.

Opera Mobile 9.5 beta 2: Now with widgety goodness originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments