Opera Mini for Windows Phone brings huge data savings

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Promised a while ago, the folks at Opera have finally got their next-gen version of Opera Mini for Windows Phone out the door, bringing significant data savings to on-the-go browsers. It's a proxy-based solution, so web pages get grabbed, parsed and reduced by Opera's servers, but for those on limited data tariffs or bandwidth it's a terrific solution - and now fully Windows Phone 8.1-aware and compatible.

From the Store entry (note that it's still labelled as 'beta'):

Try one of the world’s fastest browsers for Windows Phone. Opera Mini is free, secure and customizable for all your browsing needs. More than 250 million people worldwide love the Opera Mini web browser. Check out why!

  • Browse faster: Content-heavy webpages with lots of images and graphics load faster. We make webpages lighter, so you can enjoy the fastest browser for your device.
  • Save data: Opera Mini can reduce webpages down to 10% of their normal size. That saves you data, giving you faster, cheaper internet.
  • Navigate easily: Bigger buttons and a clear layout make Opera Mini easier to use.
  • Be social: Share your favorite content in a snap!
  • Browse safely: Opera's focus on security and data privacy, keeps you safer on the web.

Updated today, I gave the brand new version of Opera Mini a spin on my Lumia 930:

Screenshot, Opera MiniScreenshot, Opera Mini

It's a clean look, albeit with some on-screen furniture. Unlike Internet Explorer, tables are handled properly too, for general purpose browsing this looks ideal.

Screenshot, Opera MiniScreenshot, Opera Mini

The central Opera control in the bottom toolbar brings finger-friendly icons to the main functions, plus a handy 'data savings' gauge (note that this can be expanded to a full-screen chart, plus you can customise the image quality being grabbed to improve the compression ratio overall still further)...; (right) switching between tabs

Screenshot, Opera MiniScreenshot, Opera Mini

The Settings pane has been made much simpler than in previous betas and on other platforms - easy to understand and not much to fiddle with! (right) highly interactive sites - including Disqus!! - fall foul of the proxy server-based approach, but you can't have everything...

You can download Opera Mini (beta) from the Store here - highly recommended, keep this in your briwsing toolbox on Windows Phone.

Source / Credit: WMPU