Opera Mini 4 + touchscreen P1i = awesome mobile browsing

Bernie Goldbach has kindly loaned me his Sony Ericsson P1i for a two week trial between consecutive Limerick Open Coffee Club meetings. While my first mobile was an Ericsson I have long since become a loyal Nokia fanboy. The 3650 and 6630 Series 60 models won me over with perfectly fused brains and brawn.

While I had the use of a Palm V is my last job 8 years ago and certainly enjoyed the utility of the stylus, I've always found the 5 way rocker an entirely capable way of interacting with Series 60 mobiles. And it's never occurred to me that anything would be easier with the addition of touchscreen control.

But, now that I'm approaching two weeks use of the P1i I'm starting to think I'll miss point and touch command. It's not the impressively accurate handwriting recognition or the finger flick scrolling that I'll pine for. Rather it's the combination of touch control with the brand new Opera Mini 4 browser that I'll long for. Among other innovations Opera Mini 4 dynamically changes the size of text and images to save on scrolling and make reading easier. You can glimpse a 'birds-eye' overview of the page and quickly zoom in to focus on specific content. As you move the virtual mouse the cursor snaps to view the link or text of interest.

Now access those powerful features through a P1i touchscreen and you've got a magical mobile browsing experience. Better yet you don't actually need an advanced smartphone to avail of this software. As Russell Beattie says, "Opera mini is still the best mobile browser hands down with tons of functionality, yet not requiring a smart phone. They keep adding features and making it better in every release - the newest beta launched today is their best yet. So great". Indeed, so great.


Technorati Tags: mobile browser, opera mini, sony ericsson, p1i

Comments

[Bernie Goldbach]

We will bring the sync cradle, software and user manual to the next OpenCoffee and hope that will encourage you to use the phone through the end of September. If SonyEricsson agree, it's yours for Paddy's Valley and beyond.

[Armaan]

Hi!

I m using a P1i..... and recently downloaded Opera Mini 3.1 , but unable to browse sites. Almost no site's i can browser.

It says, to setup my network setting.

Although network is set.

[James Corbett]

Hi Armaan, have you tried version 4 beta? That's the one I'm using, without trouble. I really love it.