I’ve been a blackberry supporter for quite a few years now, and I’ve been waiting for a great browser to come along that handles all my needs. The native browser lacks in so many areas that there is no real point to mention it too much more in this post. However, I’ve been playing around with the Opera Mini and Bolt browsers and I think they are coming very close to having something that I can be happy to use for my mobile browsing pleasures.
The Opera browser has great navigation and so-so presentation to me. I’m not really enjoying the zoomed out feature that allows you to view the entire web page. I mean I am on a mobile phone, I don’t expect to see the entire page on the tiny screen. Zooming it out like that is ok for getting to the lower part or the side of a page quickly, but their feature to scroll right and left on the rollerball does a great job at doing that for me. One other thing that i’m enjoying too much is the speed of the browser. When I first started using Opera Mini, it wasn’t such a problem, but after I started using the Bolt Browser, I could notice the difference.
The Bolt Browser has great speed going back and forth between web pages. I think that’s a very important factor for a mobile browser, and they are the only ones, that I have encountered, that have done a great job at being pretty consistant with browser speed. The browser window is great at displaying full HTML pages as opposed to the dry mobile views of the native blackberry browser. Although you still have to scroll up and down and use the page up and down feature instead of just scrolling to the left or the right to move up and down a page much quicker, the Bolt Browser does pick up in just about every other area when compared to Opera Mini.
One thing that has plagued me about both browsers is the fact that neither of them allow me to log into T-Mobile. That becomes very annoying at times, but hey, they can’t be perfect. I recommend Opera Mini as a great step up from the native blackberry browser, but I recommend the Bolt Browser as a great one and a half step up from the native browser. With their powers combined I think it would lead to the best browser out there for blackberry (for now). I still want some mobile flash going!!
If you have the chance, definitely check out both browsers and see if one or both can suit your everyday needs while on the go and come on back to voice your opinion. If there are any other browsers out there for blackberry, please let me know. I’d love to give them a try. I’ve used these 2 browsers on a Pearl 8100 as well as a Curve 8320.
