With the release of Opera Mini 4 Beta today, I was inspired to look into browsers on my phones. Opera has been around for a long time, offering us great browsers for both the desktop and Pocket PCs.

I downloaded and installed Opera Mini on my Nokia N70. It was a great improvement over the built in web browser that came with the phone. I was amazed at how many phones were supported. This is a must have if you search the web on you phone.

I then delved into upgrading the browser on my HP Ipaq 6828. For Windows Mobile 5 devices, you will want to install Opera Mobile.

Opera Mobile loads a standard site and formats it so that it will look good on a tiny screen. It does not by default load up the mobile version of a page.

You can see how Inspect My Gadget shows up in the screenshot to the right. Pages are quite readable as both text and images are shown at a reasonable size.

There are many more functions available over IE mobile, such as full screen view and multiple windows.

I noticed that the latest beta of Opera Mobile 8.65 Beta is only valid until October 1^st. I hope this means that we get a full fledged version on that day.

Download Opera Mini or Opera Mobile from the Opera Website and follow the links. This is a freebie.