There’s no question that today’s smart phones are godsend to high tech travellers, but what good is a web enabled phone if its browser is cumbersome of slow, with the right handset and browser software, you can surf all manner of desktop level site, without having to carry a laptop with you or find a nearby desktop PC. Great out of the gate, Skyfire with its first full release candidate (Skyfire 1.0) which displays flash, Silverlight and AJAX content that the Iphone trips over and leaves blank, this browser starts up quickly and the main screen leaves plenty of room for the pages display plenty of room for the page display and windows mobile fans struggling with IE mobile should head straight for Skyfire Labs, It also work on Symbian powered Nokia E-series and N series smart phones.
BlackBerry can run java apps out of the box, while newer models already come with a halfway decent browser, the java capability means that today’s curves, peals and 8800s are primes candidates for opera mini 4.2, the latest version support RSS feeds and is cinch to navigate, though it lacks Skyfire’s AJAX, flash and Silverlight compatibility, also video streaming works well with this version.
Bitstream Bolt 0.86 Beta eschews the last ounce of page accuracy by replacing web font with its own, the mean that many site that are usually off limits on a cell phone come through crisp and clear, it’s a great option for Blackberry, though some models, like curve 8330 have a bug that can slow bolt down, bolt also has a nifty split screen mode on the support 128-bit SSL encrypted sites. Opera continues to refine its powerful windows mobile web browser, opera mobile 9.7 Beta, the trick at this point is waiting for cell phone data radios and touch screen response to catch up.