Opera Launches Opera Mobile 9.7 beta

While all eyes are on Apple and the expected announcement of the latest incarnation of the iPhone at its Worldwide Developers Conference today, Opera Software has announced the beta launch of Opera Mobile 9.7 for Windows Mobile-based phones. Speed is at the heart of the release, the company says, with the addition of Opera’s recently-launched technology for faster surfing, Opera Turbo.
There are two main elements to Opera Turbo. The first is server-accelerated rendering.  Opera Mobile unburdens the mobile phone of its full rendering responsibilities by off-loading this task to Opera servers. This frees device resources, thus improving download rates and overall performance. Opera Turbo also uses compression technology to speed up data transfer and to reduce the amount of data that needs to be downloaded by up to 80%. 
Opera has also included its newly upgraded browser engine, called Opera Presto 2.2, for faster page loads and better overall performance. Opera Presto 2.2 is the same rendering engine used in Opera’s desktop browser.
Also included are the Opera Widgets manager and Opera Widgets SDK. Using the Widgets manager, Opera users can access their favourite services with a single click. The tool comes with several widgets pre-installed, including GeoQuiz, Twitter, Bubbles, MyStatus and Google Translate.
“There are other mobile browsers on the market that claim to be faster and more Web site-compatible on Windows-based phones, but I challenge users to take Opera Mobile for a test drive and discover a new standard for speed and compatibility,” says Opera Software CEO, Jon von Tetzchner. “Opera Mobile 9.7 leaves other sluggish and painfully slow browsers in the dust.”
There’s more information about the Opera Mobile 9.7 beta, including an Opera Turbo demo video here. And you can download the browser here.