Opera Mini 5 Beta hops onto Android

Days after Windows Mobile launch, popular mobile browser makes it to Google phones

Less than a week after launching on Windows Mobile phones, Opera Mini has another new home: Android.

Version 5 of the popular Opera mobile browser, Opera Mini 5, comes to the Android Market just over a year after the release of Opera Mobile 4 for Android.

The new browser comes with some seriously significant upgrades, like tabbed browsing, not only essential for desktop browsing anymore. Most default smartphone browsers feature tabbed browsing already.

Like similar features on the desktop versions of Safari and Chrome, Opera Mini 5 also comes equipped with Speed Dial, a screen that displays links to the user's top nine favorite sites. Additionally, those who also use Opera on their computers will be happy to hear that the new mobile browser allows for syncing of bookmarks and Speed Dial directly from the phone.

Opera Mini 5 also includes a Password Manager.

Besides all the nifty new features, one of Opera Mini's biggest advantages is that Opera compresses all incoming data before it even reaches the phone, ensuring quicker surfing speeds.

Perhaps the most glaringly absent feature from this beta version is the lack of multi-touch support.

Already, Opera Mini claims 50 million users worldwide.

Though it launched on both Windows Mobile 5- and 6-based handsets and Android phones in the past week, Opera is not yet done expanding. It's only a matter of time until the iPhone gets its own Opera Mini 5, which would be the first real competition for the phone's default browser, Safari.