{"id":8461,"date":"2010-11-24T14:56:31","date_gmt":"2010-11-24T21:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wapreview.com\/?p=8461"},"modified":"2014-04-16T21:30:19","modified_gmt":"2014-04-17T04:30:19","slug":"new-opera-mobile-is-fast-and-stable-on-the-n8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/8461\/","title":{"rendered":"New Opera Mobile 10.1 Is Fast and (Mostly) Stable On the N8"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Opera<\/a> \"Opera <\/a>\"Opera<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The non-Beta version of Opera Mobile 10.1 for Symbian was released today.\u00a0 It supports S60 3rd Edition, S60 5th edition (aka Symbian^1) and Symbian^3 devices. Like all of the Opera 10 Symbian variants, it needs a fair amount of free RAM, at least 40 MB and\u00a0 70 MB or more\u00a0 for best results. Download it from opera.com\/mobile\/download\/<\/a> or m.opera.com<\/a> (mobile).<\/p>\n

The main changes in this release are said to be increased stability and more localized versions.\u00a0 There’s a\u00a0 full change log on the Opera Mobile Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’ve been looking for a better browser for my Nokia N8 ever since I got the phone. The current Symbian^3 browser is quite poor with tiny, ugly fonts, no\u00a0 text reflow on zoom, the inability to open a link in a new tab, missing geolocation support and poor JavaScript performance. A better browser is supposed to be coming from Nokia.\u00a0 It was originally promised for this year\u00a0 but I heard at Tech.Ed that it’s been delayed until February, 2011.\u00a0 In the meantime I’ve been using the the Java version of Opera Mini 5.1 as my main browser on the N8.\u00a0 I tried Opera Mobile 10 and both of the 10.1 Beta’s but had problems with text columns not fitting screen width and\u00a0 crashing when used with the native keyboard or Swype. Needless to say I was eager to see if the new release fixed these issues.<\/p>\n

The good news is that the crashing using Swype and the Nokia keyboard does seem to be (mostly, see update) fixed<\/strong>.\u00a0 With the previous Opera Mobile releases on the N8, I could induce a browser crash almost immediately when entering addresses or typing in Web forms using the Nokia keyboard, but with this one I haven’t had any crashes in several hours of browsing. Update: WapReview reader Niels discovered that\u00a0 Opera Mobile still crashes on his C7 with the Nokia keyboard if predictive text is enabled and you press the on-screen right arrow key. I’ve confirmed that the same thing happens on the N8.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Dabr<\/a> \"Dabr<\/a> \"Dabr<\/a><\/p>\n

The text wrap issue is still present, however. At 100% zoom, text columns do fit page width on almost every site. However text is too small for me to read easily at 100% on many sites (image above left). Opera seems to realize this and defaults to 160% zoom when first installed on the N8.\u00a0 That makes text readable but has the unfortunate side-effect of making text columns wider than screen width on some sites, including my favorite Twitter web client, dabr.co.uk<\/a> (image above, center).<\/p>\n

There is a way to get readable text in Opera Mobile 10.1 without\u00a0 losing fit to width. You just need to use Opera’s advanced configuration utility (opera:config) to do this.\u00a0 It quite easy:<\/p>\n