"While Opera seems to lose out to Firefox in the 'alternative Browser' market, they might end up as winner on the mobile market."

I don't know about that – the problem they'll have is that new phones are coming out with similar browsers built-in. I just got a new phone and it does all the resizing of images and nice layout changes. I set the Google Mobile page as my start page, and I can do almost all of what you described without an additional app.

I'm sure I'll give this a try anyways, but I just don't think it will see widespread use because if what you have works you're not likely to look at what else is out there.

niraj: give it a try and come back .. really .. it's not about an app itself only ... it's about opera servers transforming (and compressing) pages so that they can be viewed on mobile phone ... really different experience

bernis: to be fair, I got a new samsung blade phone, so my phone's running dsl speed internet (sprint's evideo network), so I wouldn't see the same kind of difference...it's already blazingly fast. I could definitely see how other phones could see a big improvement in load times. Of course I will try it anyways :)

Philipp: Opera Mini is not a replacement for Opera Mobile, which is still being actively developed for smartphones (Symbian and Windows Mobile). Opera Mini just targets a different group--the majority of phones out there. It's a great product and I have used it today on both a GPRS and EV-DO handset. Both handsets gave me a great user experience.

Niraj: I bet you'll like Opera Mini over the built-in browser, even with your EV-DO phone. I got a Samsung A920 for eval today and loaded Opera Mini on it. So much nicer than the built-in.

Jon, Opera Mobile is very flawed on my phone, to the point where I can't use it. So Opera Mini also targets me even though I have Symbian OS (and even though I bought Opera Mobile). Maybe they try to quietly rebrand their mobile line and then drop Opera Mobile? I mean why would I pay for an inferior browser on Symbian OS when I can install a better one for free, from the same company? In that sense they are just completely destroying the Opera Mobile market for Symbian OS, which handles Opera Mini fine. In that sense Opera Mini acts more like a successor. But time will tell...

Nice: Opera Mini handles Gmail just fine. You can just go to gmail.google.com as usual, and after logging in you're presented with Gmail's more accessible "basic HTML" view.

Well they just (like last week) introduced a new version of Opera Mobile for Windows Mobile, so I doubt it's going away anytime soon. I bet they move the Mobile version to more AJAX stuff and probably make it free too. Much easier to have Google pay for it all right?

<i>Graphics are converted to small images; it feels very fast, so Opera may be using its own proxy to convert the images before they reach you.</i>

Phillip, yes the pages are reformatted and compressed by Opera's servers before being sent to the phone, so they only use about one fifth of their normal amount of traffic.

Source: http://operawatch.blogspot.com/2006/01/opera-mini-released.html

I also saw they split up long pages into multipe pages. I saw page numbers at flixd.com, and there are no actual page numbers.

Opera got a long way to go before they can catch up with Firefox. It would be cool if both of these browser share source code and make a secure browser, although there's no such thing as "SECURE."

Opera Mini is a Java-Application, this is what makes it run on most mobiles.
Therefore, it cannot (in contrast to Opera mobile!) execute JavaScript, Flash or Java applications.
Also, it warns you before entering sensible information, because this information will be sent to their servers, which reformats the pages in order to make them usable on the mobile phone.
In contrast to that, Opera mobile does not use (but can) such a server, it reformats the page on your mobile phone. Therefore, you can safely use it for Homebanking,
one thing you should NEVER do with Opera Mini.
There are no plans to replace Opera mobile with Opera mini.
Try a newer version of Opera mobile if you think it makes the page less usable than Opera mini does, because the Opera Mini server reformats the page in exactly the same way as Opera mobile does.

Here is more useful information and a good explanation of what happens:http://annevankesteren.nl/2006/01/opera-mini

i just downlaoded opera mini to my T3 works great from the card and very fast im impressed but i wanted to know why opera prevente you from usuing certain features like th reply button from yahoo email
can any boby explain how i can access aim email usinng opera or web pro browser from palm. it seem to me the only email i cannt access on my pda ir aol or aim email
concernd 1

I am using Opera Mini for six months now with my Nokia 6230 in GPRS/EDGE network, and I must say that its simply brilliant!!!

I agree with the positive. Opera Mini is great. The browsers are generally built by the handset manufacturers. One thing I have learned is that the mobile carriers (and telcos) as well as the handset manufacturers rarely are great at developing software. Good software but not great software. So we get innovative products like Opera Mini, Movamail (http://www.movamail.com) and Google Mobile Maps (I dont think I need to add their URL) that offer better alternatives to the preinstalled options.

Good stuff. Thanks for the lead on Movamail, Jay! I never really heard of them till your post and I have not stopped using this application.
LC