Opera Mobile 9.7 goes live

by Chris Ziegler posted Jun 8th 2009 at 3:00AM

Opera Mobile, already considered by many to be the premier browsing platform for WinMo handsets, has just benefited from a big boost today in the form of version 9.7. The headline here is that 9.7 is the first version to employ Opera's Opera Turbo technology, which offloads pages to Opera's servers (in much the same way as Opera Mini) where they get compressed to tiny fractions of their original sizes before being sent down to the phone. A demo on Opera's site shows the tech in action (using an EDGE connection for added drama), and if the claims hold up, Turbo should clearly make a noticeable difference in end user browsing speed. Next up, 9.7 upgrades to the Presto 2.2 rendering engine, which is exactly the same engine used by Opera's desktop browsers and is said to offer up to a 25 percent boost in rendering speed over previous versions. Anyhow, Opera Mobile 9.7 is available now for your WinMo phone -- much to Internet Explorer Mobile's chagrin, we imagine.

Filed under: Software, Windows Mobile

Tags: opera, opera mobile, OperaMobile, windows mobile, WindowsMobile, winmo

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

nigel @ Jun 9th 2009 4:13AM

Nice piece of software.

Renders faster.

The Screen rotation is spot on. None of that is it lan...no port...no land...wait it's port...i mean landscape.

Not so sure about opera turbo.

Still a bit buggy, but to be expected.

Neutral

EGOvoruhk @ Jun 8th 2009 4:34AM

Have they released any versions of 9.x for download that weren't a beta? I know the one baked into my Touch Pro isn't labeled as a beta, so why can't you download that version? Why are they still selling only 8.65? Crazy Opera...

Neutral

Dylan @ Jun 8th 2009 5:34AM

Been using it this morning and it is very very nice. Noticeably smoother and faster than Opera mobile 9.5. Best browser on WM by far.
It does the great WVGA screen on my Touch HD justice.

IE, even the latest version on WM6.5, is a big pile of stinking crap compared to this. IE is slow, has terrible slow scrolling in comparison.

But Opera have removed the zoom bar, and so all we have is the double-click zoom. Which on my WVGA screen means it zooms in way to far. I can read text much smaller on this great screen. so give us back out zoom bar

Neutral

operative @ Jun 8th 2009 8:28AM

the zoombar was removed, same with some 9.5 versions. but there was a small hack in the registry or the opera.ini file ;) maybe you should try that.

Neutral

operative @ Jun 8th 2009 8:31AM

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=3856344&postcount=174
that should do the trick

Neutral

ebinroy @ Jun 8th 2009 5:56PM

I just noticed that if you hold down your finger/stylus a menu will pop up. If you select zoom, the zoom bar will appear. It sucks that they decided to hide it like this, but at least it's still there.

Neutral

James @ Jun 8th 2009 7:32AM

I'll stick with the Browser on my Pre for the foreseeable future. Best I've used.

Neutral

Eddie @ Jun 8th 2009 8:47AM

All I see is the beta there. If that is the only download available for 9.7 then it should be stated in the post that it is a beta.

Neutral

Riley Freeman @ Jun 8th 2009 10:05AM

why does it matter if its a beta or not? it doesnt remove the original opera that comes with the phone. it will give u 2 opera's

Neutral

Eddie @ Jun 10th 2009 8:33AM

It matters because I'm not interested in messing with beta's.

Neutral

DWilli @ Jun 8th 2009 10:16AM

I've been actively trying to delete Opera from my phone, actually. I have a HTC Touch Pro (AT&T Fuze), and I'd much rather run Skyfire...I pretty much avoid the Internet tab on TouchFLO 3D, because for whatever reason, they don't allow you to change the browser that loads when you go through that tab (which by default is Opera.) I haven't found a website yet on Skyfire that doesn't load 100% like it's full PC browser counterpart.

Neutral

Ayle @ Jun 8th 2009 10:39AM

Why don't you just install a plane jane rom with tf3d?

Neutral

ebinroy @ Jun 8th 2009 5:45PM

Just downloaded 9.7 and I'm very impressed with Opera turbo. The compressed pages load blazingly fast, almost as fast as opera mini. No more waiting for large websites to load!

Neutral

Mchawks31 @ Jun 8th 2009 8:01PM

It wont run on my verizon omnia for some reason...

Neutral

lightofhonor89 @ Jun 9th 2009 3:21AM

Verizon is notorious for limiting app usage on their phones. Wouldn't surprise me if they disabled it (at least for now.)

Neutral

Jinn @ Jun 8th 2009 7:44PM

i notice that when i downloaded the 9.7 beta version
for my sprint htc diamond. when your in landscape modr
in web browsing and you click to reply a txt message
txt messaging goes into landscape mode. i dont know
if this is a glich but anyone with a phone like mine see
if it workso

Neutral

ryan @ Jun 9th 2009 2:21AM

Skyfire is still better...

The speed bump is negligible in the Opera browser. HOWEVER, when I went to Engadget, Opera loaded all the literature, but the pictures were still loading. Skyfire loaded everything in the same time.

I'll stick with Skyfire regardless of competitors speeds, it has flash capability. Therefore, it wins.