Opera Software releases Opera Mobile 9.5 beta

Performance

Driving all the front-end enhancements is a new proprietary core rendering engine, called Presto 2.1, which improves on the speed and rendering quality compared with Opera Mobile 8.65. While Opera doesn't yet have benchmarking numbers to share, We will say that the new version performed more smoothly than the old during testing and trounced Windows Mobile's Internet Explorer in performance. While Opera Mobile itself may have gotten speedier, the browser is still only as good as the phone's processor.

For developers, Opera has also included support for the open-source remote debugging tool nicknamed Opera Dragonfly. Using the computer's IP address and Opera browsers for the phone and desktop, this cross-platform software syncs the two to test against errors on the phone, not just in the editor or emulator.

Known issues

Beta builds aren't meant to be perfect and Opera Mobile 9.5 beta comes with its share of flaws and foibles. First, it's an English-only build with support for other languages coming later. Users will also notice right away that Flash hasn't been enabled, making this software version video-blind. Installing the application on a memory card may be rocky, so make sure you've got room for the 4.2MB requirement.

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Fourth, you'll want to refresh pages after switching between viewing modes, for instance mobile and full screen views. Finally, problems with custom input methods specific to certain phone models will be buggy or broken.

Road map: What's next

As mentioned, Opera's center of command plans several more updates to Opera Mobile 9.5 before the final release. Google Gears, Opera Link, and Opera Widgets are slated to join the app in subsequent waves of development. A version for Symbian phones is forecast for Opera's near future.

Availability and price

Starting Thursday, the touchscreen version of Opera Mobile 9.5 beta has been available for free for Windows Pocket PC phones running Windows Mobile 5 or 6. A slightly different version of Opera Mobile 9.5 comes preloaded on the HTC Diamond and Samsung Omnia. Opera Software has declined to comment on the pricing of Opera Mobile 9.5 going forward, but we've speculated elsewhere that there's a good chance the product could remain free. The stable version, Opera Mobile 8.65, costs US$24.

This article first appeared as a blog post on CNET Download.com.