Opera maintains its powerful arsenal of features in this beta, including Speed Dial, tabbed browsing, a password manager and its super, server-side compressor, Opera Turbo.

“We are unifying our products, so that users get the same experience, no matter the device or which particular Opera browser they are using,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “With Opera Mobile 10, we are raising the expectations of how a a mobile browser should perform. Today, users require a browser as powerful as the Web, one that can handle their daily tasks as well as their computers. That’s Opera.”

“Today’s powerful smartphones deserve an equally powerful browser, like Opera,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “This beta continues our work to extend the desktop Web experience to mobile phones, allowing users to surf the Web without limitations, even while on-the-go. No matter the device in use, Opera delivers a faster, easier and hassle-free Web experience.”

Opera Mobile 10 beta is available for Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung smartphones running Symbian/S60, 3rd and 5th editions. The beta is free to download to your computer from http://www.opera.com/mobile/next/ or directly to your mobile phone from http://m.opera.com/mobile/.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can grab a copy here: http://www.opera.com/mobile/download/ . Note that the Opera Mobile 9.7 is in its beta1, full flash support is not available yet and expect to see bugs and errors. Make sure you go through the list below

9.7 beta known issues

Browser

• Opera Turbo in Opera Mobile is still a preview-feature;
  • Downloads don’t work while Opera Turbo is enabled.
  • Some settings (such as toggle on/off images) do not apply when Opera Turbo is enabled.
• On older WM 5.0 Devices with 480×800 resolution, switching between portrait and landscape may cause display errors. This is due to lack of support for this resolution in early versions of Microsoft’s driver.
• Some input method editors are known not to work well with Opera because they do not comply with Microsoft’s SIP and/or IME standard. When such an editor is detected by Opera, Opera will use a known (default) input method instead. An exception is EzInput v1.5, where the phone keypad and compact QUERTY, ABC mode doesn’t work, but the rest of the modes work fine. We recommend upgrading to EzInput v2.0 to avoid this.
• Only support for FlashLite 3.x. No Flash plugin included.

Widget manager add-on

• The Widget manager is an add-on to the browser, so the browser must be installed in order for the widget manager to work.
• We recommend disabling Opera Turbo in the browser when using the widget manager.
• Rotating widgets does not work properly. Portrait mode should be used when running widgets.
• Widgets + Plugins (Flash & Gears) don’t work.
• Clicking internal links in a widget will launch the browser.
• Twitter widget might have login problems on first run. If this happens, just close the Twitter widget (X) and open it again.

Click here to view the embedded video.

[via betanews]

Location is always relevant when someone is browsing the Web,” said Tatsuki Tomita, SVP of consumer products at Opera Software. “By embedding Skyhook’s technology into Opera and making it available through the W3C Geolocation API, we ensure that every Opera user gets the same, high-quality, location-based experience out of the gate.”

“Today, carriers and mobile device manufacturers alike are looking for solutions that take advantage of existing technologies and investments while trying to maintain a high level of service for their customers,” explains Rod Hamlin, Senior Vice President for the Americas for Opera Software. “Opera Mobile 9.7 with Opera Turbo gives our business customers to ability to bring a rich Internet browsing experience to their mobile device and to the end-user without having to allocate new resources and development costs.”

Opera Mobile 9.7 with Opera Turbo also features better standards support (100% Acid 3 test) and developer tools, hardware acceleration Open GL ES, and support for Google Gears. Check out a demo video below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

“We are living in a time and place where access to the Web should be a universal right to all. Technology has advanced us to the point that we can very nearly access the Internet anytime and anywhere from a growing number of devices,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “As part of Opera’s commitment to provide the best experience on any device, Opera has developed the Opera Turbo solution. The Mobile World Congress serves as a forum for us to educate others on the wonders of Web technology.”

See it to believe it at Opera’s Mobile World Congress exhibit (Hall 2, Stand 2B77). Mobile World Congress participants will also have the ability to experience Opera on a variety of devices: Opera Mobile on smartphones such as HTC Touch HD, Samsung Omnia and Sony Ericsson Xperia. Mobile World Congress will be held from 16th to 19th February in 2009 in Barcelona, Spain.

“Opera has built its second Opera Mobile 9.5 beta based on user-generated feedback following its first public release earlier this year,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “In addition to Opera Widgets, this new test version promises to be a smoother ride than the previous version, as we have improved page loading times and increased our focus on end-user productivity.”

Opera is launching the updated SDK with a developer competition called the “X Widget Challenge”. Opera is offering $10,000 in cash prizes for the best cross-device widget submissions. Read more about the competition from my.opera.com/widgets.

Coming to an event near you Check out Opera Mobile 9.5 with Opera Widgets in Europe, North America and Asia at the following events:

• Smartphone Show in London on October 21-22, 2008
• Mobile Internet World in Boston on October 22-23, 2008
• Web Applications Conference in Seoul on October 23, 2008

Opera Mobile 9.5 beta with Opera Widgets is ready and waiting for download from http://www.opera.com/products/mobile

“Seamless, effortless Internet access is critical to any state-of-the-art connected mobile device, and the combination of Opera 9.5 and NVIDIA Tegra will deliver the full Web experience into the palm of your hand,” said Neil Trevett, vice president of mobile content at NVIDIA. “Opera and NVIDIA are cooperating to create a powerful browsing experience that will truly make the Internet an integral part of the advanced Tegra mobile visual computing experience.”

“Full Web browsing is a key feature for mobile phones and mobile Internet devices today. End users are demanding a mobile-browsing experience that mirrors that of their home and work computers,” says Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera Software. “Opera 9.5 combined with NVIDIA Tegra will deliver a powerful and visual browsing experience for the next generation of smartphones and mobile Internet devices.”

The Tegra family of computer-on-chip solutions integrates high-performance ARM CPUs, extensive media acceleration and integrated GeForce GPUs that enable Opera 9.5 to provide mobile users a compelling browsing experience with the following features:

• Support for full desktop Web content with hardware-accelerated rich media, image and in-page video playback;
• GPU acceleration delivering a smooth, highly-interactive panning and zooming browsing experience with significantly-reduced battery consumption;
• Hardware-accelerated 3D touch browsing experience with Opera integration into NVIDIA’s OpenKODE-based composition framework using the power of OpenGL® ES 2.0.

Devices with the Opera browser powered by NVIDIA Tegra hardware are expected to be available to consumers in 2009.