Skyfire and Opera Mobile 9.5 - Two Beta Browsers You Need to Consider

Dulles: June 30 2008 - For the past month I have been using a beta version of the Skyfire browser (0.6.0.4503) on my AT&T Tilt (Windows Mobile 6). When my Tilt is connected to either WiFi or 3G, Skyfire is very good. Skyfire displays the full web page - but on the Tilt, most of the page is too small to read. But once I click on a section of the page to read, Skyfire brings up the section with clear, readable text and images are cleanly displayed. While connected to AT&T's 3G in my backyard, I was able to surf the web fairly well for an hour including reading blogs and viewing videos. However, after an hour, my battery life was down to the single digits. I don't know if my Tilt is a battery hog or if surfing the web requires lots of juice or if this battery drain is a combination of the two. One area that was awkward: when typing in a form or entering your id and password sometimes the text does not display in the text box. As more mobile devices become available with larger screens, higher resolution and speedier connectivity, Skyfire will be a strong contender as the browser of choice for Windows Mobile. This is a very strong offering from Skyfire and perhaps there will be a Symbian Skyfire browser in the next delivery cycle. In the meantime, download Skyfire beta for your Windows Mobile device (www.skyfire.com) and enjoy a near desktop surfing experience.

In addition to Skyfire, Opera will be releasing into beta their Opera Mobile 9.5 browser on July 15. MobileCrunch reports:

For just about every Opera Mobile fan, the 15th can’t come soon enough. Powered by the same rendering engine (Presto) used in the Opera Mobile 9.5 desktop browser, it oughtta be about as fast as it gets. With support for Opera Widgets, Javascript, AJAX, and Flash (Lite 3.0), Opera Mobile 9.5 might just knock Mobile Safari off its high horse.

Knocking off Mobile Safari will require a significant effort from the Opera team in Norway. I'm excited that more companies are producing high quality browsers for the Mobile market. Windows Mobile users: block out July 15 to download Opera Mobile 9.5 - if it even closely resembles Opera desktop, Opera Mobile 9.5 beta will join Skyfire beta as a pair of browsers every mobile web surfer should be using.