Opera has expanded its range of mobile phone browsers to include Android, a plan confirmed by CEO Jon von Tetzchner back in August. A beta is now available in the Android Market for Opera Mini 5, and can be found simply by searching for "Opera", or by heading to m.opera.com/next on your phone browser.

The browser includes Opera's compression technology, which routes page requests through Opera's servers and reduces their size by up to 90% before sending it to the handset - that should mean considerably faster response times, especially when you're browsing on an iffy connection. The trade-off is that images won't look as pretty.

There's also the desktop version's Speed Dial feature, as well as tabbed browsing, a password manager, and full bookmark manager. Dag Olav, Opera's VP of products, told Pocket-lint: "Android users should not have to compromise when it comes to surfing the Web on their phones. Opera Mini will give Android users a fast and cost-efficient access to their favorite Web sites and services".

Via: opera.com

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