Opera Mini 3.0 beta

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Opera Mini 3.0 beta homepageUpdate;  The latest release of Opera Mini is version 3.1,  read about it here.

There is a new beta of the next release of Opera Mini available for download. I’m sure you’ve heard of Opera Mini, but in case you haven’t, it’s a free Java ME browser that is faster, more capable and has a more efficient UI than almost any of the browsers that come pre-installed on phones. There’s a page of information about the new release and download instructions here. New features in this release are:

  • Secure (https) pages are now fully supported. Mini 2.0 let you browse secure sites but the transmission wasn’t actually encrypted between the browser and Mini’s servers. That was probably OK for gMail but certainly not for banking. Now your data is encrypted from end to end. Note that secure browsing requires the MIDP 2.0 version of Mini 3.0, which Opera calls the high memory or “HiFi” version. It doesn’t really require that much more memory but your phone must support the newer Java ME MIDP 2.0 standard which most phones released in the last two years do.
  • A built in RSS reader.
  • Photo uploading.
  • “Content folding” which is what Opera calls hiding lengthy navigation menus. It’s very similar to what the Google Transcoder does. The big menu of links that appears at the top of most PC web sites is replaced by a plus sign. If you really need to see the menu, clicking the plus reveals it.

As a confirmed Opera Mini user I was eager to try out the new version. Although Opera Mini is great, there are a few small annoyances that I was hoping would be fixed in the new version.

I was especially wanted to see if a scrolling issue that apparently only effects Motorola phones was fixed. When you scroll a page with images, Opera Mini 2 will freeze for a second or two before it scrolls an image into view. Un-selecting “high quality” images in the Mini options helps somewhat. It isn’t really that bad, Mini is still better than the built-in browser which takes forever to render images and can’t handle pages with more than a couple full screen images. I don’t think many users would have complained except that the early versions of Mini before 2.0 scrolled images with almost no hesitation. It was obvious that Opera had changed something that worsened the user experience on Motorolas. There is a long thread on the official Mini forum with Motorola owners complaining about the problem and the Opera moderator “ManneS” promising that a fix was coming. Some users went back to using the last version of Mini 1.0 (1.2.3214), but that didn’t work for me because 1.0 uses a tiny font that can’t be changed and which I found too small for comfort. Mini 2.0 in the High memory version gives a choice of four fonts including a couple that I could read without eyestrain.

Another improvement I was hoping for was accesskey support. If you are a regular reader of this blog you know I’m a fanatic about accesskeys on mobile pages. Unfortunately Opera Mini, almost alone among mobile browsers, doesn’t support the accesskey standard. I’d made a feature request for accesskeys on the Mini forum and was hoping they had made it into this release.

Many people have been asking that Mini support file uploads of various types including photos. The camera on my i855 is so bad that I have little desire to use it let alone upload the photos anywhere, but I was curious to see if the new photo upload feature actually worked on a Motorola iDen phone on the Nextel network (Shozu doesn’t).

First I had to find a way to get the beta on my phone. My carrier Nextel, blocks downloading Java apps from anywhere but their Cellmania online store and Opera is only offering the beta download OTA from a wml page. So I fired up Firefox and with the WML Browser and User Agent Switcher extensions, set the user agent to “MOT-A-3D” which identifies the browser as a Motorola i855, downloaded the .jad file, opened the .jad (which is just a text file) in notepad and copied the .jar url from the .jad into the browser’s address bar to download the .jar file. Then I fired up WebJAL (It’s a “liberated” Motorola developer tool that lets you load Java apps and ringtones) and sideloaded Opera Mini 3.0 onto my phone. I tried the high memory version first as it has always worked on the i855 before. The beta installed but when I ran it the phone spontaneously rebooted! I tried again a few times with the same result. So I repeated the drill to get and load the low memory version – and it worked!

Wow, what an improvement. The low memory version now offers a choice of font sizes. The default medium font was too small but large was perfect. The image scrolling problem was gone too. I loaded a 400KB page with dozens of full screen images and scrolled smoothly from top to bottom. And that was with the “high quality” image option selected – something I never did with 2.0 as it slowed image scrolling even more. Pages seem to load noticeably faster too.

The RSS reader is OK. It auto discovers feeds on web pages. If a page has a feed, an RSS icon appears at the top of the page along with a link you click to read the feed. There’s another link at the top of the feed reader that lets subscribe to the feed. You can read your subscribed feeds “By Time” River of News style or “By Feed” which gives you a list of feeds to read one at a time. Mini’s reader doesn’t keep track of what you have read so every time you open a feed you get all the articles all over again. I prefer mobile web based readers like Bloglines Mobile or Google Reader that keep track what you have read regardless of if you read it on your mobile or PC. But you have to register for and set up web based readers. Having RSS reading functionality built into the browser makes it easy to quickly check out feeds without any setup. Reading a feed in Opera Mini strips out sidebars etc. leaving just the article’s text and images which is generally more mobile friendly than reading the originating site directly – unless that site has a mobile version. The reader loads the entire feed as a single page. I think a better mobile RSS reader design is the way Google Reader and Feedalot do it – an index page listing just the item titles with links to each individual item. That way you can pick and choose which items you want to read and don’t have to scroll through every item to get to ones near the bottom.
I couldn’t find the photo upload feature in Mini. I suspect it’s only in the high memory version. Accesskeys still don’t work either – I was really hoping that Opera would add them- it seems like a simple thing but one that really enhances usability on sites like gMail Mobile where 7 deletes the current email, 4 archives it and 0 takes you to the Inbox, etc. Opera designers have obviously though a lot about usability with features like dedicated page up and page down keys and handy shortcuts for things like refresh(#,0) and jump to top and bottom of page (#,3). I don’t understand why accesskeys weren’t part of the design from the beginning.

Minor carping aside, I’m switching to the beta for all my browsing. The scrolling and speed improvements and the ability to use high quality images make 3.0, even in it’s low memory guise, so much more enjoyable to use than 2.0. You don’t give up much with the low memory version, either. The main features of Mini HiFi that I miss are the “quick dial” shortcuts (*, 1-9 takes you to your first 9 bookmarked sites) and being able to hide the page title and soft key labels.

All in all, I’m extremly pleased with Mini 3.0 even in it’s LoFi version. The performance improvements, which probably only apply to Motorola users, are what I like the most. The RSS reader is nice to have and for HiFi users picture uploading and https support are pretty significant improvements. It’s a beta so the sort of incompatibilities I experienced with the the HiFi version are to be expected. I recommend trying the beta especially if you have a Motorola device or a MIDP 1.0 phone and want to be able to change font sizes. The beta installs alongside your existing Mini 2.0 installation rather than replacing it so you can freely switch back and forth. Bookmarks aren’t shared between the two versions and Opera warns that any bookmarks you create in the beta will not carry over to the actual 3.0 released version.

Opera believes in “One Web” and Opera Mini is billed as a “full” html browser. It certainly lives up to that billing and can load virtually any PC web page. The usability of PC sites in Mini ranges from excellent for pages (like Opera.com) that follow Opera’s guidelines to just tolerable for framed, pop up laden sites but in almost every case usability is better than what you get with a transcoder. Opera Mini is also the best browser for mobile specific pages because of it’s speed, image handling and powerful shortcut enabled user interface. If only it had accesskey support :).

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55 thoughts on “Opera Mini 3.0 beta”

  1. My phone nokia 6030 im using reliance gsm operator in india.
    I download operamini but it failed to connect to internet. And no other java application can connect.i need setting to connect java connection setting for n6030..for relaince gsm..

  2. Desond, I don’t understand what you mean by a “PC configuration”? Are you trying to run Opera Mini on a PC, side load it from a PC to a mobile or what?

  5. Hi, i have nokia 6300 with airtel nop activated. When launch operamini 4.2 it shows ‘fail to connect internet’ & subscribe to packet data first. Please help.

  6. Mitch, For people to be able to help you need to provide more information:
    * Phone make and model
    * Description of the failure mode including any error messages.
    If it’s a connection error also include:
    * Your network opperator and country

  7. Opera mini version 4.2 doesn’t work on my phone even if it is the version that’s compatible ..
    I’ve tried it several times . Please help me :((

  9. i have problem with my nokia 6085, and the problem is i wanted to use my solibay opera-mini, and the respond is giving me is that cant access network.

  10. i have a n6600,., how can i download opera mini?,., because my phone really slow and fails to connect,.,tnx, ill wait for your reply,.,

  11. i use nokia 6300 with airtel NOP . i want to use opera mini 4.0 but it fail to connect . please say me how i slove that problem

  12. Thanks Dennis. I’ve been trying to solve the Opera Mini install problem for quite a while. Went to the Nokia site as suggested got the settings sent to my phone. All working well now!

  14. Hi All,

    I am also facing the same problem with Airtel NOP on 6600 and 6670 but it works fine with Nokia N73 ?

    Do u have any solution out there… Thanks…:)

  16. I have nokia 3230 and after installing opera mini older versions it ois showing that”Failed to connect to the internet”.Does this opera mini 4 will work properly in my phone?????????PLZZZ HELP ME………I really need opera mini!!!!!!!!!!

  17. i cannot connect with opera while connecting i want to know which was the access point setting my phone model is nok 6030

  18. Sachin, Gaurav, SUNNY Take a look at my Aug 8th comment. That’s the best advice I have on Opera Mini connection problems.

    Dennis

  20. I too have same problem as described above.
    I too have airtel mumbai connection & use
    nokia 3230 on Nop.I tried opera mini 3.2 & 4(beta 1&2),but still it gives cannot connect to internet.while opera mini works on my other LG S5200,with same connection.Plz help.

  21. I am a nokia 3230 user with airtel NOP(gprs)connection(INDIA).I hav downloaded Opera mini 4,but it is not working & says Failed 2 connect internet.

  22. Pradi, Rams, Vilin and others who are having connection problems with Opera Mini.

    The carriers and phone manufacturers have not made it easy to set up web access for Java applications. It’s different for every phone model and carrier. Just because your built in browser works does not mean that you have the settings you need for Java, they are completely different settings on many phones. Here are some things to try:

    1) See if you carrier can push the settings to your phone. Most will if you call them and ask. Unfortunately, their settings don’t always work.

    2) If you have a Nokia phone, Nokia has a site that can send the settings to most phones: http://europe.nokia.com/nokia/0,,71993,00.html or: https://secure.mouse2mobile.com/clients/nokia/com/

    3) Sony Ericsson can also send you the settings if you have one of their phones. Go to: http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=us&lc=en&ver=4000&template=ps3&zone=ps

    4) This thread on the official Opera Mini Forum, has settings for many phones; http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=111656

    5) Search phone forums like
    http://howardforums.com
    http://esato.com
    http://cellphonehacks.com

    6) “Google is your friend” ™ Search for “My_phone_make_model Opera Mini connection settings”.

    7) I wrote an article about this issue with solutions for specific phones on T-Mobile USA. It should help you understand the general concepts on how to set up Java connectivity.
    http://wapreview.com?p=312

  23. While using opera mini, in my nokia 6030, It is showing ‘failed to connect to internet’!!!. What should i do??. I have spice connection frm karnataka. Please help me out.

  24. I got n3120 and samsung x120 and they both got “Failed to connect” error after test connection with opera. What is it?

  25. I have problem in accessing opera and other apps my Airtel NOP activated please tell me how can do this i have nokia 6060

  26. I spent $300 on my 6265i & cant dwnload pics, wallpaper, screensavrs r games but i can dwnload porn wuts up wit dat

  29. “khalid khan May 29th, 2007 at 5:05 am

    please help me locate a midlet manager to download to my samsung i600”

    I have the same problem guys. Any feedback more than welcome.
    Cheers

  30. please help me locate a midlet manager to download to my samsung i600

  31. i wanted to use im yahoo on my 6256i on the internet on the site meebo.com but i require java for it to work and it says that i dont have jave my phone carrier is metro anyone now how i can get java in to my phone ??

  32. Liz,
    You can’t download Java to your phone, it’s either comes with it or not. Some Nokia 6265i’s have Java and some don’t it’s up to your carrier some have Nokia install Java others specify BREW. Are you on MetroPCS, CellCom, US Cellular or Cricket? If so you are out of luck, they are all BREW only.
    Dennis

  34. does anyone know what the problem is to download the opera mini browswer to my nextel i880 phone. I have tried many times and I have not been able to do it?
    I would love to find out if there is a way to do it, and what do you have to do
    to download it.

  35. Today my dad and myself tried to follow the instructions again, and nothing happened.
    the files don’t get transfered to my phone?
    If you can figure out what I am doing wrong, please let me know.
    I would love to download this to my nextel i880 phone, and I it won’t download to my phone?
    any idea’s on what to do?

  36. This is exactly what I do. I use NSFjal. What I do, is download the two basic files from what it normal is to mini.jal, and the other to minijad. then I go into the one and change it like you said to.
    Then I open up NSFjal, and find the two files in my documents section of my computer. Then I download the one file that said to download, Nothing happened, meaning when I open up my java apps there is nothing there, no icon, nothing. when I download games they show up and I can load it to my phone, so I know what to look for if it worked. Then after I only download the one file like you said, I tried to download both the jad and jar, because when I download games I have to do both files for it to work. Nothing happens agian. So I first try to download just the one file, it didn’t go to my phone. When I tried to download both, nothing went to my phone. I changed the name of both files, and then changed the wording like you said to do. Then loaded it in my loader and downloade to my phone, but nothing happens. There is nothing there to find, like
    nothing happened at all. And it looks like I did everything correct. I was thinking maybe it is not meant to work on the i880? I don’t know.

  37. Corey,

    I’m confused. Where did I say to only download the .jad? On the contrary, you need to download both the jar and the jad to your PC.

    When you say nothing happens, I can’t believe that. Something always happens. I need more details from you to try to figure out what’s wrong. Let’s go through the WebJAL process step by step.

    OK, to start you have downloaded the jar and jad and renamed them and edited the jad as I explained in my previous comment. Right?

    Now you start WebJAL. If you are using WebJal and not iDEN JAL you have to log in. Does the Login succeed or do you get an error logging in or are you using iDEN JAL?

    Other than the login, using iDEN JAL and WebJAL is the same. For brevity I’ll just say WebJAL from here on but all this applies to both loaders.

    Next you need to press the “Connect to Phone” button at the top of the WebJal screen. Do you get an error message connecting?

    After WebJAL connects you should see a list of the applications on your phone. Do you see the list?

    Now you need to press WebJAL’s “Download” button and browse to where you saved mini.jad and mini.jar. WebJal’s “Open” dialog only shows .jad files but the jar needs to be in the same folder even though you can’t see it. Now double-click the Mini.jar item inside WebJAL’s Open dialog. WebJal should display a new dialog that says “Transferring mini.jar to phone” with a progress bar below. Do you see that?

    When the transfer finishes, WebJal should say “All transfers are finished.” Do you see that?

    The list of files in WebJal should now include an new entry “Opera Mini (uninstalled)” Does it?

    If you got this far and see “Opera Mini (uninstalled)” in WebJAL, I guarantee that it’s on the phone. So please try it again and let me know exactlly what happens at each step especially any error messages that you get.

    Dennis

  38. thanks for all your help. Today I followed your instructions, and when I opened up the
    java on my phone there was nothing there. When you suggust to downlaad the
    jad file, most of the time you download both the jad and jar file. But with this your suggustion is only to open the file jad. I tried that, and then I tried downloading both, and nothing happened?

  39. Corey,

    On my i855, only the basic version works.

    You need to download both the jar and the jad of the same version.

    Put both the jad and jar in the same directory then rename the jar to mini,jar and the jad to mini.jad.

    Next, open mini.jad in a text editor like Windows Notepad. Change the following line in mini.jad:
    MIDlet-Jar-URL: opera-mini-3.0.6636-basic-int.jar
    to:
    MIDlet-Jar-URL: mini.jar

    Save mini.jad. When you save a file in Notepad, select “All Files” as the file type or it will get renamed so mini.jad becomes mini.txt or mini.jad.txt. If this happens just rename it back to mini.jad. (You’ll have to also delete or rename the original mini.jad because two files can’t have the same name).

    Now load mini.jad with webjal. There should be no errors from webjal. Any webjal error usually causes the file not to load to the phone.

    Disconnect the cable and open Java Apps from the phone menu. You will see Opera Mini and “Installing…” when the install finishes press done and you should see a menu listing all the Java Apps on your phone, nine to a screen. If you don’t see Opera Mini, press “Next” to go to the next screen until you find Mini. Select it, hit OK, ignore the “Low Memory” errors and press “OK”, Mini should launch.

    Dennis

  40. Thanks so much for the info, one problem, I am very familar with webjal, I have it downloaded on my computer. When I go to the opera website, there are two generic files basic and advanced. they both have two files, one is jar, and the other is jad. So I did change the name to something shorter, and then download both the advanced one, then the basic. then I check my phone, there is nothing there at all. It does not show up anywhere on my phone? That’s why I wanted someone to check out why the i880 is having problems. If your positive that it works for the i880, what am i doing wrong?

  41. Corey,

    Installing Java programs on iDEN phones is not as easy as it should be. Nextel has blocked the phones from downloading except from their own Download Apps site. You have to download the Java programs to your PC and then transfer them to your phone with a data cable and loader program.

    The good news is you don’t need to do all that stuff with Firefox that I wrote about above any more. You can use any web browser.

    First get a data cable from http://HarryThompson.com and download iDEN JAL from http://developer.motorola.com/docstools/idenjal/openJAL/. Install iDEN JAL. I wrote detailed instructions at http://wapreview.com?p=212

    Then go to http://www.operamini.com/download/pc/generic/generic_basic_midp_1/
    with your web browser and download both opera-mini-basic.jad and
    opera-mini-basic.jar.

    iDEN phones can’t handle long filenames so rename the files to mini.jad and mini.jar. Open mini.jad in a text editor and change the line:
    MIDlet-Jar-URL: opera-mini-3.0.6636-basic-int.jar
    To:
    MIDlet-Jar-URL: mini.jar

    Now load mini.jad to your phone using iDEN JAL. Everytime you start Opera Mini, there will be an error message “Java Memory Extremely Low” and Mini will suspend, just hit OK and Mini will start. Once you get past the inital error Mini will run very fast and stable.

    Dennis

  42. I have been trying to do what the post said to download opera mini web to my nextel i880, I downloaded firefox, but I dont’ understand any of the language he uses. Is there a way you can explain how to download this to my phone, I have tried everything and nothing works. I don’t understand everything after using firefox. Your help would be really helpful.

  43. I agree 100% with the accesskeys. When you’re browsing a long page, for example a WAP Forum, and you don’t want to hold down to get to the bottom when they have an accesskey anchor to it, I mean why not support it?

    Otherwise Opera is pretty good. I hope they implement accesskeys also.

  47. i am using a nec e313 & its a gprs able phone.the links available are for wap enable phones.what is the size of the download kb

  48. ceejay80, If your phone can do OTA downloads, just browse to beta.mini.opera.com to download the beta. Otherwise, you can do what I described in the post to impersonate you mobile with Firefox and download it to your PC.

    SI, On the Opera Mini forum, (my.opera.com/community/forums/forum.dml?id=111) users seem to agree that 3.0 works on the Treo but with some crashing which has been an issue with every version of Opera Mini and many other java apps on the somewhat buggy Palm KVM.
    Some Blackerry users say it’s works but others don’t. There are so many Blackberry models but it appears that Mini 3.0 works on at least some of them.

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