Opera Mobile vs. Opera Mini – Best Advantages and Features Comparison

Those who have a PocketPC or a smartphone and aren’t fans of Internet Explorer have two solid options for a web browser from Opera: Opera Mobile and Opera Mini, but finding out which one is right for a specific user can be a difficult task.

Short description

Opera Mobile is built for Pocket PCs, smartphones and other similar devices. It is a strong browser, featuring lots of features like full support of secure websites.

Opera Mini is a Java browser designed for cell phones without access to a full (traditional) website but it isn’t a very good choice for secure websites. It offers some advantages over Opera Mobile that might convince some people to switch browsers.

Advantages: Opera Mobile

• Opera Mobile makes web navigation easy, featuring a standardized interface.
• When viewing a page, users can utilize the menu to zoom in up to 200% or zoom out until the page is 25% of the original size.
• Users can have multiple tabs open at once
• Opera Mobile supports secure pages, definitely superior to Opera Mini.

Advantages: Opera Mini

• Opera Mini works different than most browsers: it sends a request to the Opera servers, which download the page, compress it and send it back to the user’s device and this leads to increased performance.
• The Opera Servers optimize web pages to display them on mobile devices, meaning that some pages will look better on Opera mini than on Opera Mobile or other browsers.
• Opera Mini only features two phases of zoom: regular and zoomed in, but toggling between them is done with a light tap on the screen, making it quicker to use.
• Such advantages are notable especially when users are accessing a non-mobile website.

Conclusion

It is up to the end user to decide which of the two suits them best, it’s better to try them both and then make a choice as they are both extremely good browsers.