1. Opera is my favourite desktop browser and I am very happy when they announce the first beta of Opera Mobile 10 for Symbian S60.
2. There are many reasons why I prefer Opera products (Opera Desktop, Opera Mini, Opera Mobile, Opera Link) over other solutions in the market but that topic I will discuss in other opportunities.
3. This time, I want to share about Opera Mobile’s differences, compared to it’s sister Opera Mini 5 Beta 1.
4. I have covered both browser’s similarities which should give you an overall impression of how they looked like (if you haven’t used them already).
5. Please take note that this write-up is based on my own experience and observation of both products which I use in my day to day internet consumption extensively. Hence this is not an official Opera Mobile vs Opera Mini Q&A.
6. If you want to get more information about both products, please visit their respective official websites i.e. Opera Mobile and Opera Mini.
7. Lets take a look :
| Opera Mobile 10 Beta 1 |
Opera Mini 5 Beta 1 |
|
| The Name |  Opera Mobile 10 Beta 1 |
 Opera Mini 5 Beta 1 |
| Programming | It’s native, meaning it’s using the same language as the Operating System. It can be installed on Symbian S60 (3rd Edition & 5th Edition) smartphones only. |
It’s a J2ME. Used in many phones all over the world. It can be installed on feature phones and smartphones which supports J2ME. |
| Page Rendering |
- Is done on the device. Hence, it requires bigger memory (RAM) and processing power. All rendering are done on the device, much like the real desktop browser- You can also switch on Opera Turbo to pass the page processing to
Opera’s server |
Is done on Opera’s server. Using a technology called Opera Turbo. Web pages are processed and compressed on the server before sent
back to your phone. The data are compressed up to 70% which resulted in faster browsing |
| Rendering Engine |  - Presto v2.4
- The first Opera product to use Presto 2.4 engine |
 Presto 2.2 (Read more about Presto 2.4 Here) |
| Opera Turbo | - You can switch Opera Turbo on or off.- When Opera Turbo is enabled, the rendering processes will be passed to Opera’s server.
- Pages will load faster because they have been processed and compressed. |
Opera Turbo is built-in. Cant be disabled |
| Page Display |  - Real desktop internet browsing experience with the ability to display websites as realistic as possible as if it is displayed on desktop internet browsers- Heavy pages like Facebook and Gmail are displayed exactly like on desktop browsers
- supports the latest web technology standards such as CSS, Javascript - Flash not supported yet |
 - Pages are displayed like on desktop browsers but sometimes are not rendered correctly especially on heavy web pages that utilises web standards e.g. Gmail, Meebo, etc.- For example, the full facebook website, can be displayed but not as good as Opera Mobile 10. Information are misplaced and the designsometimes went off. |
| Internet Access Point | 
You have to select access point manually everytime you start Opera Mobile 10 to surf the internet
|
 - You can define access point and set itto connect automatically everytime you want to browse the net.- Tools – Application Manager – Opera Mini 5 Beta – Open – Access Point |
| Download Manager |  When you click on a link to download a file in Opera Mobile, a nice download window will appear which asks you to select where you want to save the file. once you selected the location, it will give you a download info. |
 Currently, Opera Mini 5 Beta 1 doesnt support download directly (unlike Opera Mini 4). When you click on a download link, it will ask you to open the built-in Web and uses it’s download manager. sounds complicated but it gets the job done (This was also how the earlier version of Opera Mini handles download before Opera Mini 4) |
| Opera Dragonfly | - Opera Dragonfly is a web development tool. It is included in Opera Mobile 10- You can use it to assist your web development works
- See here for more info |
This feature is not available |
| RSS Reader |  Currently, it is not possible to use RSS reader inside Opera Mobile 10. If you click on RSS icon, it will open the feed in a page full of unformatted xml texts. Lets hope thisfeature will be implemented in future version. |
 - You can use Opera Mini 5 to read RSS by clicking on RSS icon or by typing feed:list on the address bar.
- RSS texts are formatted nicely for reading |
| Advanced Setting |  Using opera:config will open an advanced setting window which gives you the power to tweak and optimise it’s performance |
 Using opera:config will open a simple extended setting, with limited options. |
| Font setting | This feature is not available |  There are 4 different font size tochoose from. Very small, Small, Normal, Large. |
| Image Setting |  - There is no extended setting for image display.- You can only switch image display on or off. |
 - Image display can be switched on or off- Image quality can be set to low, medium, and high. |
| Zoom Setting |  - There are 7 levels of zoom from 60%to 200%- By default, its 100% - When zoom is applied, images and texts are zoomed together |
This feature is not available |
| Simple file browser | 
By typing opera:drives on the address bar, it will bring you a simple file manager which you can use to browse your S60 smartphones and view files.
|
This feature is not available |
| Shortcuts Information Popup |  In any page, you can view the summary of available shortcuts by pressing the asterisk (*) button which will display a nice view of bookmarks. And also by pressing the hash (#)button, you will be presented with the keypad combination summary. |
Currently this feature is not implemented yet in Opera Mini 5 Beta 1 but it was available previously on Opera Mini 4. Hopefully it will be included in the final version. |
| Viewing Cache Files | opera:cache | 
opera:cache |
| Viewing Browsing History | opera:history | 
opera:history |
| Viewing About Opera | 
opera:about |
opera:about |
