14 DAY TRIAL // Today, Norwegian software company Opera announced that Opera Mobile 10, its full-feature mobile browser, is now available on MediaTek's platform, and that it should power future handsets from the leading semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions.
According to the two companies, MediaTek's new chip solutions for 2.75G and 3G feature phones are set to be shipped with Opera Mobile 10 on them from now on.
“Opera Mobile has been recognized as providing the best Web experience on smartphones. Features such as Speed Dial, tabs, password manager, Opera Link and a pop-up blocker make a desktop-like web experience on feature phones a reality,” the software company announced.
Through Opera Mobile 10, users should be able to surf efficiently around the Internet even when connected to a slow, congested network.
Moreover, the browsing solution enables mobile phone users to enable Opera Turbo, the compression technology from Opera that enables faster loading of webpages than what other mobile browsers can offer.
Further expanding the mobile Internet access for handset owners out there, the mobile browser is now available for feature phones that pack MediaTek's new chip solutions, enabling them to offer web-browsing capabilities similar to those on smartphones.
“Internet browsing has been a requirement on smartphones for some time. Now, feature phones follow suit,” Steven Yuan, GM of Wireless Communication BU I of MediaTek, had to say on the matter.
“Opera Mobile is an innovative and user friendly mobile browser to enable the best Internet experience in today's mobile communication. With MediaTek's latest chipset solution for feature phones, the device makers and partners are able to deliver the users much smarter feature phones than ever.”
Opera Mobile 10 was developed based on the same browser engine as the Opera browser for desktop computers, the software company announced.
The browsing solution should run directly on MediaTek's platform, taking advantage of the hardware on handsets for the download and display of webpages.
“Delivering a complete web experience on feature phones is a significant step forward," Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software, commented on the new announcement.
“It represents a wider adoption of sophisticated feature phones with the superior web-browsing capability in the market in the near future. We are working closely with MediaTek to make it happen.”
Moreover, the Opera Mobile browser was designed so as to fully enable advanced Web 2.0 technology, including AJAX, offering a far more interactive browsing experience.