Opera Mobile gets boosted to 8.65, offers Flash 7, UI updates
Sal Cangeloso provides a nice first look at the latest Opera Mobile version; v 8.65 hit the web yesterday although some recent devices already have this version. You’ll find a handful of UI tweaks and fixes in the change log but more important is the experience. Sal shares his experience by comparing the new Opera Mobile against Internet Explorer Mobile on the the HTC Advantage. Similar to what Jenn reported with her mobile browser comparison, Sal found Opera Mobile a much speedier application.
Opera included Flash Lite 2.1 and Flash 7 support with the new release, so that alone might nudge you to give it a free try for a month. It’s $24 to purchase after that which seems like a good deal if you surf on a Windows Mobile device often. If you only use the browser for a year, that’s $2 a month for a faster surfing experience, better display rendering and Flash support.
Note: if you need support for a non-English language in Opera Mobile 8.65, you’ll want to hold off on the download. As of the time of this writing, the Opera team notes a bug with non-English versions of Opera 8.65 WM and they’re working on a new build.
I saw this notice and then looked and 8.65 is what is preinstalled on the Advantage so this has been out for months.
Not exactly. Opera announced availability yesterday; it’s pre-installed in the Advantage’s ROM so that’s the exception. Until yesterday, the majority of Windows Mobile users couldn’t get this version.
When I saw this, I thought maybe my HTC Advantage would have a new friend, but I was surprised to see I already had 8.65. For once, it looks like I got access to pre-release software like you A-listers! I didn’t even sign an NDA.
So no change if I install this on my Advantage?
I guess it doesn’t do YouTube?
Yes it does do YouTube. Mojo don’t install it, you already have it.
Has anyone been able to get Flash to work on the Advantage? Even with Opera 8.65 and a separate download/install of Flash 7, I still get a “you don’t have Macromedia…” message on YouTube.
Could it be that the Advantage shipped with an earlier build of 8.65? I don’t see a build version anywhere and there’s no “update” option in Opera’s menu system, but you’d figure that there would be at least SOME changes (even really minor ones) between the beta version that Advantage folk have been using for months and the official one that was released yesterday.
My Advantage doesn’t do youtube neither,
but with vTap it works great !
My Advantage doesn’t do Youtube either (except for the special portal they set up with limited videos). James, are we missing something? You said it does youtube. vTap is definitely worth checking out. It’s my new go-to app for watching video on the net. Great search feature. Works well on HTC Advantage. Also, are there any improvements since the version that came with the HTC Advantange? I can’t find anything on the net about it.
You guys are right about YouTube, I had watched some video from YouTube but it was the mobile portal and actually played in WM. It will be worth downloading this new version, even though the version # is the same, to see if Flash really does work with YouTube.
Two taps to go back? I don’t get why you folks are so excited when something as basic as that is an issue. Navigation is still an issue with Opera Mini for me.