 Update to my previous Opera Mini post: I was finally able to download Opera Mini to my Treo 650. I’ll skip all the standard install info…just know that you need Java in order for this work. In fact, if you don’t have Java installed, don’t even waste your time or memory installing it. Use those minutes to laugh at my experience with this browser.
When I loaded up Opera Mini (the home page was the Google search engine) and went to the menu to change it the English version, I got my first sign that something was wrong. For some odd reason, I thought I could just use the Treo’s directional arrows to maneuver around…apparently not. This is strictly a stylus-driven browser. Just clicking on the down button makes it jump about two or three links, sometimes more. So, out comes the stylus. I changed it to English and instinctively looked up to type in a web address. No can do. You have to go to the Menu in order to type in the web address. Ok..that’s no problem, that’s typical of cell phone browsers. I type in www.treoaddicts.com and the processing bar at the bottom starts flashing and then it just….quits. No error message, nothing. It just stops processing. I tried it two more times. Then I tried my own site and was able to access it. Aaah…my first positive. It’s actually pretty speedy when it can connect. Keywords being: Can Connect. I tried another site. Once again, it just stops processing. At this point, I decided to take a break from trying to surf. I decided to go Settings and change the browser to “Smooth Font”. It clearly stated that it would “fit more text on the screen, but performance might be negatively impacted”. I thought maybe it would slow it down a little bit, but little did I know I would spend the next five minutes of my life (that I’ll never get back, mind you) trying to get back to Settings to turn off the Smooth Font. Smooth Font must be Norwegian for “blurry, constant flashing to the point where you can’t even click on anything”. I was finally able to take it off Smooth Font and decided that I needed further punishment, so I went to see if Skweezer would make a difference. It got to Skweezer, but treoaddicts was a no go. I tried clicking on some links on the home page and some loaded and some didn’t. At this point, I just gave up…sorta like Opera Mini did when accessing Treo Addicts.
So what’s my opinion of Opera Mini? It’s not ready for the Treo 650. Maybe this is a great browser on a cell phone, but it’s not the browser that many Treo folks wanted to see released from Opera. The fact that you have to use a stylus, the processing bar is distracting and takes up too much screen real estate, there’s no option to make it your default browser and it just doesn’t work sometimes, makes it unusable on the Treo.
You can grab Opera Mini from mytreo.net here:
mytreo.net Downloads | Opera Mini - HiFi 1.0
Technorati Tags: Treo, mobile web, Opera
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August 18th, 2005 at 7:12 pm
I regret that you seem to have a somewhat negative view of Opera Mini.
I think it’s really, really good - just this side of great. I use it now as my main browser for read only purposes (If I want to download I use WebPro). I had no problem getting to this site.
Sometimes I have to click (tap) twice on a bookmark or a link. Then away I go to that page.
Where this really shines is going back to previous pages which is INSTANTANEOUS (hitting the back key ‘
February 26th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Opera Mini for the 650 was a total failure for me… I just downloaded it today, 26.2.07, and after trying to run it, I was told I needed Java. So I downloaded that, and Opera froze on the testing phase, which was a bad sign.
I rebooted, and got through the testing, but when I tried to get to Yahoo, I was booted back to the Applications (Home) screen of Palm OS. I tried again and the same thing happened.
So I rebooted one more time, and got a phone call while I was trying to use Opera. After about three minutes my phone rebooted and I lost my call, so I went to the Delete screen and did away with Opera.
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:26 am
Yazi, I experienced the same thing yesterday and today (7-3-07). Opera won’t work on my Palm Treo 650. I just deleted it. Too bad. I had read some good reviews.
October 10th, 2007 at 1:59 am
when I tried to get to Yahoo, I was booted back to the Applications (Home) screen of Palm OS. I tried again and the same thing happened
Same problem for me, this fixed it, no problems now.
Open the “System Preferences”, find “Other” at the bottom, select “IBM Java VM”, make sure to “Set Memory Maximun: to 1MB and “Set Maximum Java Thread Stack Size” to 32KB. Then you’re done.
December 16th, 2007 at 7:10 am
Read my review of the new Opera Mini at http://blog.sunish.net/2007/12/16/opera-mini-on-treo-review/
Sunish