I’m a Firefox on Mac and Google Chrome on PC person, and to be honest, I’ve never used Opera. However, I was immediately stoked upon opening the free Opera Mini iPhone app because of the clean layout, appealing visuals and app like interface of saving my favorite Web sites.
Opera Mini gives users the option to view Web pages in either “mobile” or “regular” view by flipping a mobile setting button. I was more than a little disappointed to find out that pinch to zoom wasn’t enabled on this iPhone app. Users must tap to zoom, which is much less efficient. But, the Web pages do load slightly faster than with Safari, so you have more seconds to look for what you want. Marry the two together, and I’d be a happy Opera Mini user.
I love that the opening screen/start page of Opera Mini allows you to save little app-type thumbnails of your favorite Web pages, similar to Google Chrome, for quick access. The flipping to another opened Web page function is much easier with Opera Mini than with Safari as well.
And, if you are looking for a default browser to open windows from links you click in-app, it’s not going to happen here. There is no option to set Opera Mini as your default browser on the iPhone.
Overall, I don’t think I’ll be forgoing Safari to go Opera unless I’m in a rush, and need a fast, clean search. I’ll still use Bing for my voice searches, as there is no voice search in Opera Mini either.
