If you have an iPad and intend to use it to make calls you must have this!
Posts tagged 3G
by Ben Lopez
Opera Mini made a nice splash in tech blogs, and as a top trend on Twitter when it launched in April. I thought it was a little buggy, but performed well overall. After allowing some time for an update (and it has been updated), I sat down for some serious Opera time to deliver an in-depth review.
My initial impressions are that it’s not a bad browser. The interface is very nice, and in fact I preferred it slightly to Safari’s. For instance, it’s nice to have a reload button in the fixed dock, so I don’t have to scroll to the top to reload as in Safari. Tabbed browsing appears a bit wonky at first with the shuffle animation that is used, but it’s very solid.
Another nice feature is a clean, simple home screen that imitates the desktop version of Safari’s “Top Sites” screen as a spot for favourites. This is strangely absent on Safari.
Speed Tests: I tried a variety of sites for speed tests, with fairly consistent results. Opera was almost always faster, though not even close to their “up to 6x faster broswing” claim. Six times faster than what? Here are two basic examples to give you an idea of the speed comparison:
-Graphics-heavy webite (ncsx.com): Safari: 11.08 seconds, OM 7.69 seconds
-Light-graphics website (twitter.com): Safari: 7.18 seconds, OM 6.83 seconds
So good interface, good speed, but the browsing falls just a little short. The biggest problem here is that there’s no control over how far you can zoom in, it is entirely automatic. So essentially any other site that is not in neat columns become very cumbersome to navigate due to this. Clicking links is also strangely spotty, and does not always proceed to load the page. Other small annoyances include defaulting to load the “mobile” version of many sites, not the “touch” or full versions, and occasionally not resizing to fit the screen.
While it holds a sleek interface and is quite speedy, there’s no substitution for elegant navigation. If they can tweak the touch sensitivity and give us more control over our zoom, I certainly think it can hold it’s own. But for the time being, stick with Safari.
GRADE: C-
by Ben Lopez
We’re hot off the heels of Steve Jobs announcing the iPhone 4, which I covered on D2D’s Twitter page, and excitement is still buzzing in the tech community. There’s been some excitement in my own life as well, as I have recently stepped in as the Director of Marketing for App Collab, ideal for anyone interested in developing or investing in mobile apps. As you can imagine, that has put my former schedule in a blender, so I wasn’t able to sit down and get out much original content this week. Another fail, my bad. This week, I’m vowing right now: more meat, less filler! Leave me some digital-slap-in-the-face comments/threats below to keep me in line, won’t you?
That of course leads me to my one announcement of good news: comments are working again. I had nearly become a hypocrite after making my plea to Tumblr users explaining why comments should always be enabled! When I upgraded to a premium theme this week, I wondered why I wasn’t getting any e-mail notifications for new comments. But the problem is fixed, so let’s resume the conversation with the great community we have here at Tumblr!
This week’s highlights:
Less than 24 hours after I shared my predictions about Reblogging becoming a widespread standard, Wordpress announced they’re adding a feature to allow reblogs. It won’t be long until you se this feature adopted by all major blogging sites. Well, the smart ones, anyway.
A bombshell announcement was met with a surprisingly low-key reception in much of the tech community, when Skype announced they have finally been authorized to allow calls of 3G networks. Naturally, I tried it out immediately like a giddy schoolgirl, and giggled uncontrollably when it worked like a charm.
RFS Claymations is not a happy camper after taking Microsoft Office 2010 beta for a test drive, and delivers a rant accordingly.
No comic strip for this week’s humour, we innovate here at D2D, gosh darn it. A blogger introduces the new Myspace Pro service, which got at least a few chuckles from me. It’s a shame this is fake, if there was a service really like this I’d pay for it…
If you found any of the above particularly interesting or useful, please consider recommending this blog for the tech, startups, or entrepreneurs category. Thanks for reading!^_^
