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Opera is at it again. A week after the release of Opera Mini 5.1-intended for limited-memory feature phones, such as Nokia S40 handsets-the browser maker has announced a version of Opera Mini 5.1 for Android handsets.
The free browser, available through the Android Market or at m.opera.com, is said to offer users with high-end, large-screened Android handset an improved browsing experience with faster performance.
“Opera Mini 5.1 for the Android platform is the next step in bringing the world’s most popular mobile Web browser to all major platforms, offering improved performance and a great Web experience to almost any handset,” Opera CEO Lars Boilesen said in a statement. “Opera Mini is used by over 61 million people on more than 3,000 handset models and with today’s release Opera continues its mission to provide the best Web experience on any device and on any platform.”
Opera technology, which compresses data before delivering it to a handset, is designed to offer both speed and cost savings. The new Opera Mini 5.1 also comes with features such as tabbed browsing, a password manager, bookmarks and speed-dialing capabilities. Optimized for Android handsets, officials say it offers a true PC-like browsing experience. (There’s a rather nice example of this on YouTube.)
With 61 million downloads, consumers have made Opera Mini the most-used browser in the world on phones of all types. According to the company, within 24 hours of becoming available, Opera Mobile was downloaded by 1 million iPhone users.
Now it’s the Android owners’ turn. Given the number of Android handsets that have debuted this summer, there’s no shortage – Sprint’s issues with the HTC Evo 4G’s availability aside – of devices on which Mini 5.1 can find a home.