14 DAY TRIAL // Opera Mobile 10, one of the most popular mobile browsers in the world, is now available for download for users of a handset powered by the Maemo operating system. The solution comes only as a preview build of Opera Mobile 10 for Nokia N900 and N800/N810, yet it still includes the same features as the Opera Mobile 10 browser released for devices running under the Symbian and Windows Mobile platforms. Opera Turbo, bookmark and Speed Dial sync with other Opera products, as well as support for multiple tabs are included in the equation, so as to offer users the best experience possible.
“This Maemo version of Opera Mobile 10 was created as a hobby project by a small team of developers in their spare time. In total, about 6 man-weeks were spent on creating the release. It’s worth pointing out that this is not an officially-supported release. As such, it has not undergone our usual quality assurance processes, and at times may not feel as polished or complete as an official release. This also means that there may never be a “final” release of Opera Mobile 10 for Maemo devices, since it’s just that much more fun to add shiny new features rather than fixing boring old bugs,” a recent post on Opera Labs reads.
Interestingly enough, the new application comes with two new features, including the new Javascript engine from Opera, called Carakan, and the Vega rendering library, which is there to support the rendering of appealing items like CSS3 rounded corners and shadow effects. The solution boasts support for portrait screen mode, has been designed to automatically choose the screen rotation, based on the device orientation, and also offers users the possibility to set a specific screen orientation from the menu.
However, the Opera Mobile 10 browser for Maemo comes with a series of known issues, including: - Adobe Flash and other plugins are not supported. - Screen tearing may be visible when panning, especially in portrait mode. We expect to fix this in a future update. - The built-in on-screen keyboard is not supported. Use the physical keyboard or the on screen keyboard included with Opera Mobile. - There is no power management support. In practice this means that if you open a page with animations and leave Opera running, you will soon be using a payphone. Power is drained even when Opera is running in the background and/or the screen is turned off. - If you set Opera as the default browser, for example by installing the Browser Switchboard, an extra empty tab will get opened every time you open a link from an external application.