We have all known it was coming for months.  It has been heralded as the best thing to happen to Windows Mobile since…well, since Windows Mobile.  In their words, it is a program which, “completely reinvents the web browser on mobile phones.”  No, we are not talking about Safari or the iPhone.  This is the Opera Mobile Browser 9.5 (beta 1).  There has been quite a bit of hype surrounding this program, and you all know what that means: there is a lot of room for excitement, and also a lot of room for disappointment.  Let’s take a closer look and see how it fared.

The first thing you will notice when you activate the browser is how sleek looking it is.  I really liked the makeover of the interface, and found the controls were extremely easy to find.  What you see here is the Opera start page.  This is set as the home page by default, but you can pretty easily head into the settings to change that.

The bottom bar contains your controls.  One nice thing here is that after a few seconds, the bottom bar will drop off the screen, giving you a full view of the entire screen.  There are five buttons:

• Back Button
• Favorites (star)
• Tabs (switch to a different tab or open a new one)
• Home
• Settings (shown above)

One thing I noticed about the tabs was that there is no list of tabs on the screen, as there would be with out browsers.  Instead, you have to tap the tab button to see which tabs are open (the dynamic icon will show you how many open tabs are hiding in there.)  Personally, I would have given up a little more space on that bottom bar (which drops off the screen when not in use) for an always visible list of open tabs.

The easiest way to navigate, like any browser, is by using your mobile favorites, which worked great.  It is easy to create and organize your favorites from the Favorites screen.  Of course, if you have not setup your favorites yet, you can always enter the URL in the navigation bar on top of the window.

Let’s head on over to JAMM and take a look at how Opera is going to work.  Notice here that you are looking at the full page, not the mobile JAMM website.  When you first arrive at the page, it is zoomed way out.  Just double tap on the area you want to read and it will zoom in on that section. 

This leads me to my favorite feature, finger scrolling.  Look, Mom!  No scrollbars.  To scroll through an article or website, just give the screen a good flick with your finger.  That black dot on the right side is not a mistake.  That is your indication of how far down the screen you have scrolled.  That’s it.  Double tap to zoom in or out, finger flick to scroll.  Nice.

Of course, this is a beta, and Opera still has a list of features to install, including:

• Opera Widgets
• Opera Link
• Gears
• Symbian OS Support
• plenty more features

Along with their list, I can also tell you that memory optimization should be a priority.  Rendering these full websites can take a toll on the limited memory in a Windows Mobile device.  I frequently received Out of Memory errors, which will hopefully be resolved before the first release. 

The idea behind Opera Mobile is that there should not be a desktop Internet and a mobile Internet.  With their browser, Opera hopes to merge the two, allowing you to view exactly the same content on your mobile device as you do on your desktop.  This is a fairly ambitious goal, but as you can see, they did an excellent job, and one can only assume that it will continue to improve through the Beta process.  I also really liked the finger controls, and tabbed browsing.  Opera is going to have to do something to reduce the toll on my device’s memory, however, or I will not be able to afford to keep it.  

Keep watching this space as we will continue to update you throughout the Opera Beta.  They have a lot of cool features on their to do list, and we don’t want you to miss a single one.  Of course, once it is finally released, we will also bring you a full review.

Have you tried the new Opera Mobile beta?  If so, let us know what you think.  If not, head over to the Opera Mobile website and download it for free.  Then, hurry back here and give us your thoughts.

Related posts:

1. Opera Mobile 10 And Opera Mini 5 Out Of Beta
2. Opera 8.65 BETA for Windows Mobile 5.0 Released (for real this time)
3. Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta, Now available!
4. Opera Mini 4.2 beta released!
5. Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta2, with Widgets