Solo Technology

Posted on October 20, 2008   No Comments

Two of the more full-featured mobile web browsers have offered upgrades recently. I’m not sure which has the edge and think both are worth a look if you’re running a supported device.

Today the Opera folks announced an update for Opera Mobile beta – now with Opera Widgets support. I’ve just started to play around with it and have yet to see the “out of memory” error that I used to see all too often. That alone makes this minor upgrade compelling!

The widgets support is… interesting. I’m not sure that I’ll get too carried away with them, but I have to admit the weather and twitter widgets work quite nicely on my little WinMo phone. Learn more at the Features and Reviewer’s Guide pages.

Late last month the Skyfire beta rolled out a new version (0.8) and left the private beta to become available to everyone (US only…). Among other things, Skyfire is way cool for watching online video sites. Check the demo video and Product pages to learn more.

I’ve played around a lot with both browsers and, quite frankly, I have yet to decide which one I like the most.

Both are a bit sluggish to start. That can be annoying when you’re used to pocket IE’s relatively quick startup time.

Both involve connecting to a server that does the heavy lifting/rendering. However, that’s what gives both the amazing flexibility to easily and quickly go from a full page view to panning and zooming. That being said… be careful about signing into accounts with either browser. There’s some trust involved with how they manage and secure those credentials.

Anyone else have opinions on either app? I’m definitely interested in hear more takes on the relative strengths and weaknesses of these two.

Tags: beta, browsers, opera-mobile, skyfire, windows-mobile

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