Opera Mobile is a mobile web browser designed to help you browse sites through a desktop-style user interface.

Version 11 of Opera Mobile has borrowed much more from its desktop-based big brother, so if you enjoy using Opera on your PC or Mac then you can now look forward to a similarly smooth ride on your mobile with Opera Mini.

The user interface in Opera Mobile 11 is more usable than ever. The hub of the app is the Speed Dial feature, whereby you can set one-click shortcuts for up to nine of your favorite sites. Just like in the desktop version, these display thumbnail previews of the sites to make things as clear and simple as possible.

Opera Mobile utilizes a tab-based interface, meaning that you can load multiple pages at once simply by clicking on the plus arrow in the top right-hand corner. Version 11 includes the ability to open links in the background, just by holding down a link and selecting 'Open in new tab'.

Navigating with Opera Mobile

Other navigational aids in Opera Mobile include an auto-complete feature in the address bar, and a built-in search bar. Unfortunately this search bar only supports Google and is not customizable with other search engines.

Viewing pages in Opera Mobile is a delight. As with the previous version, you can opt to view the whole web page on screen or simply tap to zoom in to a particular area. The latest version finally adds support for pinch-to-zoom, provided you have a multi-touch device that supports this features. If not, you can zoom incrementally.

Other features

For those who love to tinker around with stuff, Opera Mobile is sure to please because the program is simply rammed with options. You can alter image quality, font size, and screen orientation, and there is a wealth of privacy settings too. As you'd expect, there's support for bookmarks and browser history, too. Opera Mobile also adds support for sharing links via Facebook, Twitter or email.

Unlike the latest desktop version, Opera Mobile doesn't support extensions. This is a shame, because it would be great if developers could add functionality to the browser through third party plug-ins, as they can with Firefox Mobile.

Load times in Opera Mobile aren't as fast as they are in the Mini version of the program. However, if you enable the Opera Turbo option, you can take advantage of Opera's famed server-side compression technology, making pages quicker to load. Although the Symbian version doesn't support Flash, Opera Mobile does include support for HTML 5 audio and video.

Opera Mobile 11 is a very comfortable web browser to use. It makes viewing sites on a phone almost as pleasant as it is in a desktop browser.