Opera Mini brings big screen webpages down to mobile phones

Westlake Village (CA) - Opera has officially rolled out its Opera Mini browser for mobile phones. Using a technology that Opera calls "Small Screen Rendering", special servers slim down and optimize regular webpages before sending them to the phone. Not only do the pages look better, but they also load faster and use less processing power.

Regular webpages are designed for full-sized desktop screens, but mobile phones - often confined to just a few hundred pixels wide - don’t have as much screen real estate. Viewed web pages are first sent to servers which format and optimize the graphics. Many pages contain multiple columns that don’t render out pleasantly, but the servers take that text and graphics and shrink it down. Afterwards the prepared page is sent to the viewer.

The benefits are numerous. Users don’t have to horizontally scroll, which is often the kiss of death for any webpage. In addition, Opera says the pages can be up to 80% smaller - something that cellular subscribers on a per minute plan will be happy about. Smaller pages also render faster on the

Opera Mini is available in several languages including English, Spanish and German. In Europe already a million people have downloaded the browser in trials and Opera now feels confident enough to introduce it on world-wide basis.

The browser can be downloaded and installed via http://mini.opera.com. AT&T and Cingular customers can install Opera Mini by sending the word "OPERA" via SMS to the number 46847.