Opera Mini fans

Here's my modest attempt to review currently available J2ME browsers. This review is based on October 2009 situation, when BOLT has finally left the beta stage. I have selected three following J2ME browsers: BOLT 1.5, Opera Mini 4.2, and UCWEB 6.3. Definitely things will change when new versions are coming out, especially when Opera Mini 5 final is going to be released. Maybe I'm going to write new reviews also later on, now that I have formed some sort of standard for what and how to measure differences between J2ME browsers.

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(Note that this article not only discusses Opera Mini but also a lot of other browsers. Even if you aren't really interested in them or have an OS not covered (for example, a dumb / feature phone), it will give you a decent overview of how Opera Mini 4.1 compares to the alternatives. Sorry for the size - particularly if, as recommended, you follow the references.)

As has been announced some weeks ago, I had a W3C speech a week ago devoted to Web browsing on mobile devices. You can find the (English) slides HERE. (Sorry, some of the example screenshots are in Finnish. This, however, doesn’t have a detrimental effect on the overall understandability of the material.) In order to understand the slides, I’ve also decided to comment on all of them so that the entire Windows Mobile, Symbian and BlackBerry mobile community can benefit from my speech – in written form. Finally, note that, albeit this article is over 80kchars long, it in no way can provide a FULL, absolutely thorough overview of the Web browsing scene on these platforms. That is, if you don’t understand something, don’t despair: in my referenced, previous articles, you can, in most cases, find a very thorough dissemination of the subject. Just an example: in this article, I only devote some 2kchars to the subject of downloading files while my original, devoted article, along with its (recent) updates, amount to over 100 kchars.

I also provide in-line screenshots in this article so that you know what I'm speaking about without constantly switching to PowerPoint; however, to see the original document at its full (and copy/pasteable) glory and resolution, you'll need the PPT file.

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