A new beta version of Nokia's proxy served based browsing app and service for Windows Phone, Nokia Xpress, was recently made available for download. The update from 0.8.1.6 to 0.9.8.0 adds support for multiple browser tabs, enhances the user experience for the Xpress homepage, adds ability to download images, and enhanced Magazine performance. 

As the screenshot below shows, the reworking of Xpress' home page view means more thumbnails are now shown on the screen at one time. This reduces the amount of scrolling needed to quickly access your favourite sites. The addition of multiple browser windows (tabs) is particularly welcome. It means it is now possible to leave a browser window open for later reference, or for quickly switching between two pages (e.g. when making a comparison).

Here's are the full details of the update as explained by Nokia Beta Labs:

Nokia is pleased to launch an update of the Nokia Xpress for Lumia (Beta). The app is powered by Nokia’s cutting edge cloud-based Xpress internet platform that delivers new experiences to our customers that go well beyond typical mobile browsing. This upgrade builds on the most popular features including Magazine, Data Usage Dashboard and Translate by delivering new features and significant UX and performance improvements. Highlights of the new capabilities include:

• Download images –Long press on an image to download and save images to your Lumia device
• Support of concurrent multiple tabs – this upgrade now delivers the ability to open multiple tabs in the browser so users can keep web pages open to view later
• Enhanced UX for the Xpress homepage
• Faster Magazine performance by intelligently pre-caching articles while on Wi-Fi

  
In our intial testing we found that Nokia Xpress offers both faster browsing (especially on slower connections) and a way to save data (useful for those with small data caps).

The overall results show that Nokia Xpress significantly speeds up browsing, but in most cases, in terms of speed, is probably only worth using over a 2G connection or a slower speed 3G connection. On average, pages load a third quicker in Nokia Xpress compared to Internet Explorer, when using a 2G connection.

During testing, Nokia Xpress used 80% less data than Internet Explorer. Put another way, this means Nokia Xpress lets you browse five times as much, for the same data usage. This is significant for those with capped data plans. While some smartphones are sold with all-you-can-eat or large (2GB+) data plans, many are also sold with much smaller data caps. 

Nokia Xpress and Windows Phone 8 notes

Nokia Xpress will run on Windows Phone 8 devices, but Nokia note that there are a number of issues. Most notably the long press interaction (for links and images) does not work, and non UTF-8 languages may have rendering issues. Nokia is currently working on a fix, and is expected to issue another Nokia Xpress update shortly.

As part of its new Data Sense feature Windows Phone 8 does include built-in proxy based data compression. It essentially does the same thing as Nokia Xpress, but at the system, rather than the app level. Leaving aside the advantages of a streamlined UI and the Magazine feature of the app this may leave you wondering whether there's a place for Nokia's solution on Windows Phone 8.

As a system wide implementation Data Sense is clearly a better approach. However, it requires operator support, and, at the current time only handsets running on Verizon's US network have the featured enabled. Operator support is expected to grow in 2013, and some portions of Data Sense, such as the data usage tracking, may become universally available. But it is likely that the proxy compression element of Data Sense will only be available to a limited subset of Windows Phone users for the foreseeable future, leaving an obvious gap for Nokia Xpress to fill.