Written by weiganla on Thursday, July 24, 2008

Off To The Races: Safari vs. Opera Mobile vs. Skyfire


image via Gizmodo

Everyone always complained about how long it took mobile browsers to download content. Then Safari came along and everyone complained even louder. Two of the best for Windows Mobile that sort of act like desktop browsers are Skyfire and Opera Mobile. Yeah, they’re both still in beta, but so what? Laptop Magazine figured they could still throw them through some speed tests.

What happens when you race Safari on an iPhone 3G against Opera Mobile and Skyfire on AT&T Tilts so everyone’s running data through the same pipes? The clear winner is… Skyfire. Not even close.

!?!

Skyfire blew away Safari by a factor of three because what it actually gives you is a pre-crunched image of the page. You have to zoom in to get to anything, and some users see big slowdowns on text entry while it gets bounced through Skyfire’s servers. Still, Laptop Mag says that even taking the requisite zooming into account, they could still get to live data faster than on Safari. And did I mention it handles Flash? Too bad you have to be lucky to get into the private beta.

Opera Mobile may be a lot slower, but is the feature set worth it? Does NetFront deserve to be in this conversation? What do you guys think?

via Gizmodo

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Related posts:

  1. ZDnet on Opera Mobile 9.5: better than iPhone’s Safari?!
  2. Opera Mobile 9.7 Beta, Press Release!
  3. Opera Mobile 10 And Opera Mini 5 Out Of Beta
  4. Opera Mini 5 Now a Native Windows Mobile Application
  5. Skyfire – ‘PC-Like’ Browsing on Windows Mobile?

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Ragart
Jul 24, 2008

I can’t speak for Skyfire b/c no Canadian beta thing as far as I know of. Boo.

Opera Mobile’s last beta worked pretty nicely on my Axim, but it’s still a mem hog. :(

Safari isn’t perfect by a long shot, but one thing I really like about it is the growing number of iPhone-optimized websites out there. That is freaking cool. I don’t think any other OS or browser can boast a bout websites actual reformatting themselves for your particular device. The optimized sites really make a difference, while still looking great and loading fast. It’s like WAP++. I think this should be factored in when people take a look at the browser wars.

Correct me if I’m wrong, though. I don’t know if other systems have their own optimized sites. I don’t think “mobile versions” count that much though, since they look really downgraded.


weiganla
Jul 24, 2008

I’m out in the cold on Skyfire too since my Axim had the bad foresight not to be a phone. I haven’t found a WM browser I’m completely happy with — I wish Opera was more lean and mean. At least the latest PIE is more usable. Dealing with Blazer on the Centro has made me really appreciate all the WM options.

That’s a good point about mobile-optimized pages. WAP makes sense on feature phones with postage stamp screens, but there really needs to be a new & better standard for smartphones. Is a happy medium too much to ask for? (Don’t answer that.)


Menneisyys
Jul 25, 2008

Currently, apart from the lacking functionality (most importantly, page saving / find in page), I consider Opera Mobile 8.65 the best on Windows Mobile – it supports Flash, more than 3 tabs, doesn’t crash, has very good memory usage etc. Too bad the testers didn’t bother including it in the test or, at least, mention its advantages over 9.5b.

I *really* recommend my related articles – for example, my review of SkyFire. See http://www.pocketpcmag.com/cms/blog/9/skyfire-a-brand-new-and-promising-web-browser-technical-review-comparison . Also, don’t forget to check out my W3C presentation http://www.pocketpcmag.com/old_blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=2625&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

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