Opera Software today released a new Beta version of the Opera Mini 5 Beta as a native Windows Mobile executable packaged as a .cab file. This means that a JVM or Midlet Manager is no longer required to run Opera Mini on Windows Phones. Finding and installing a compatible Midlet Manager has been an issue for many Windows Mobile users. A native Opera Mini eliminates that hassle and should also provide better performance and integration with the OS.
Opera Mini is much easier on resources than Opera Mobile 10 so it should be an especially good fit for low spec devices that have trouble running the latest Opera Mobile. The Beta supports Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices. I don’t know if that includes Windows Phone 6.5 or not.
Get the native WM version of Opera Mini by going to m.opera.com/next with your phone’s browser. Or download it to your PC from opera.com/mini/download/pc/ and transfer it to the phone.
I don’t have a Windows Phone so I can’t comment on how well this works. However there’s a lively discussion going on at the Opera Mini users forum on MyOpera. Many posters say it works great while others are reporting a variety of problems. That’s to be expected, this is a first Beta of new technology for Opera Mini. If you have a a WinMo 5 or later device, give the native version of Opera Mini 5 Beta a try. If you encounter issues please report them using the Opera Mini Bug Reporting Wizard. Unreported bugs are bugs that don’t get fixed.
Husnain, If you really mean S60V1 (Nokia 3650, N-Gage and a few others) it’s seven years old and only supports Java MIDP 1.0 which nobody is making apps for any more. You can’t really expect a for profit company to spend money to develop for such an old platform that very few people use anymore
Just installed Opera Mini 5 Beta to my WM6.5 phone. The application installed just fine and now I’m going to explore how well it works. Thanks for the heads up. (I’ve been using the Java version and it’s great to now be able to run it without the constraints of a midlet manager.)
Thats nice but why has opera left Nokia S60v1 far behind, as its beta 5 isn’t working on any of my S60v1 devices. Hope opera takes notice.