Ben
13th June 2006, 09:03 PM
I'm not sure if many of you have tried browsing fully fledged websites via the new Nokia browser yet but blow-me-down I'm very very impressed.
I'd heard a lot of negative comments about the new browser with many preferring solutions from the likes of Opera. Now, I don't know about you, but I've always found Opera's mobile browsing solutions to be pretty dire. So, I've just been giving the Nokia browser on my N80 a quick whirl.
First off, I love how it doesn't try and make full-sized websites into 'mobile' sites. Lets face it, there's far too much non-standard HTML out there for rerendering of code into mobile-friendly views to work properly. Instead, in the Nokia browser you actually get a cursor, which is moved around using the central directional button, and scroll around the full page much like you would on a computer screen.
Cleverly, when doing a lot of scrolling (which is blisteringly fast, by the way, and smooth) a minature and semi-transparent image of the full web page is shown, with a red square indicating where abouts you are. So, if you're heading to a particular part of a page it's easy to see where you are and where you need to get to.
Popups and new windows seem to be handled well. You can open up multiple windows and switch between them, and then close windows to work your way back to the original page. Upload forms work, which surprised me, allowing me to upload data off the handset memory or memeory card - though only up to 100Kb it looks like. Even advertising banners display and click through correctly, and I'm glad to report that vBulletin looks stunning in it.
Now, want to be really amazed? After browsing around for a while, select the right softkey - "Back". You're presented with your browsing history, shown as each web page, which you can 'scroll' through and pick the one you want to go back to. The last time I took a deep breath like that was when I saw Apple's Front Row for the first time!
So, while it will still have pitfalls, what with being a browser on a mobile phone and all, I'd argue that Nokia's new browser is nothing short of fantastic. It's the Internet on your mobile, no two ways about it.
I'd heard a lot of negative comments about the new browser with many preferring solutions from the likes of Opera. Now, I don't know about you, but I've always found Opera's mobile browsing solutions to be pretty dire. So, I've just been giving the Nokia browser on my N80 a quick whirl.
First off, I love how it doesn't try and make full-sized websites into 'mobile' sites. Lets face it, there's far too much non-standard HTML out there for rerendering of code into mobile-friendly views to work properly. Instead, in the Nokia browser you actually get a cursor, which is moved around using the central directional button, and scroll around the full page much like you would on a computer screen.
Cleverly, when doing a lot of scrolling (which is blisteringly fast, by the way, and smooth) a minature and semi-transparent image of the full web page is shown, with a red square indicating where abouts you are. So, if you're heading to a particular part of a page it's easy to see where you are and where you need to get to.
Popups and new windows seem to be handled well. You can open up multiple windows and switch between them, and then close windows to work your way back to the original page. Upload forms work, which surprised me, allowing me to upload data off the handset memory or memeory card - though only up to 100Kb it looks like. Even advertising banners display and click through correctly, and I'm glad to report that vBulletin looks stunning in it.
Now, want to be really amazed? After browsing around for a while, select the right softkey - "Back". You're presented with your browsing history, shown as each web page, which you can 'scroll' through and pick the one you want to go back to. The last time I took a deep breath like that was when I saw Apple's Front Row for the first time!
So, while it will still have pitfalls, what with being a browser on a mobile phone and all, I'd argue that Nokia's new browser is nothing short of fantastic. It's the Internet on your mobile, no two ways about it.