Pocket PC handhelds get a trip to the Opera
Published: 18 Jan 2006 17:35 GMT
Opera has released a beta of its browser running on Microsoft's Windows Mobile Pocket PC platform. While the browser has been available for Windows Smartphone for some time, this is the first time it will appear on larger Windows-based devices. Opera has had a great deal of success with other mobile versions of its browser, notably on Symbian OS-based smartphones.
The mobile version of the browser uses the same rendering engine as Opera's desktop browser, and the company claims that this provides the same Web experience on a handheld device. Supported standards include CSS 2 and JavaScript. The browser uses Opera's Web page resizing technology to show pages that are too wide for a device's screen, although if a site author has created a mobile stylesheet, that will be used.
"Ever since we released Opera 8 for Windows Mobile 2003 Smartphone in June 2005, people have been asking for Opera for their Pocket PCs," said Christen Krogh, vice-president for engineering at Opera Software in a statement. "We are very pleased to offer the latest version of Opera Mobile to Pocket PC owners, so they may finally have a proper Web experience on their devices."
Opera claims the Pocket PC version has full AJAX capabilities, so that sites like Flickr will work. The browser also supports the same plug-in architecture, so browser extensions such as Adobe's Flash should be supported, within system restrictions such as memory. Adobe recently released a new version of Flash Lite, a version of the multimedia system specifically for mobile devices. However, as it stands there is no specific Java support in Opera for Pocket PC.
The beta is limited to a 45-day trial, and is available for download from the Opera Web site. The final version will also be available to download, although a release date has not yet been announced.
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