Opera Mobile 10.1 Android review

The Start Page (called this in the software, but Speed Dial on the Opera website) is also a great tool, showing up thumbnails of up to nine customisable websites – just tap the one you want to load. We also like Opera Link, which automatically synchronises your bookmarks and Start Page with your Opera web browser on other computers and devices.

Sadly, Opera currently has one big disappointment for Android 2.2 users: there’s no Flash support. Visiting a website with Flash in it just tells you that there’s ‘Plug in content’, but you can’t do anything about it. Considering that one of the main benefits of Android is its Flash support, it’s disappointing that Opera hasn’t implemented support in its browser yet.

With this version we don’t think that Opera Mobile is as good as the Android browser, particularly if you have a tweaked version, such as on an HTC or Samsung phone. For standard Android users, the DolphinHD browser is currently a better choice, as it supports Flash and even lets you customise it to appear as a desktop browser so that you never get stuck on a poor mobile site. That said, in our tests Opera Mobile did work on some websites that the Android browser didn’t, so it may be a good backup in some situations.