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.

“In our own research, we have learned that the number-one reason people use Opera Mini is because it is easy — easy to use the Web you know. The idea of navigating the vastness of the Web from such a small screen can be a daunting leap, which is why we have long committed to make the browsing experience you are familiar with from your PC, easy to do on your mobile phone,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “With new, sleek navigation buttons, tabbed browsing and Speed Dial bookmarks, you are never more than a click away from where you want to go on the Web.”

List of new features:

• Tabbed browsing - Allow users to browser several sites simultaneously.
• Touchscreen or keypad browsing
• Password manager
• Speed Dial

Check out the demonstration video below:

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.

The mobile Web is booming in Latin America. From March 2008 to March 2009, overall page views in the top 10 countries listed increased 673%. From March 2008 to March 2009, overall unique users in the top 10 countries listed increased 164%. From March 2008 to March 2009, overall data transferred in the top 10 countries listed increased 510%.

“This partnership is a great way for Opera to reach Virgin Mobile USA’s large customer base in the United States,” said Opera CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner. “It demonstrates that Virgin Mobile USA recognizes Opera as a valuable service for its customers, who will now be able to enjoy Opera Mini’s speed and amazing feature set while browsing on the go.”

The Opera Mini build for Virgin Mobile USA will support both English and Spanish language support, the first such offering from a U.S. carrier and Opera. The Opera Mini application will be available to Virgin Mobile USA prepaid customers at standard data prices.

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.