Opera Mini 7 for Android

While Android phones come with the default web browser, there are a number of alternatives.

One of the more interesting is Opera Mini. The mobile browser has been around for a while now, and Opera Mini 7, the latest version, adds some tweaks and generally tidies things up.

It differs from other mobile browsers by doing a significant amount of the grunt work off the device. Web pages are compressed and this makes them load more quickly and eats less into mobile data allowance.

The interface can look a bit clunky, especially on phones with a smaller screen. The buttons are undoubtedly large, which is good, but at times not enough fits on the screen at once.

It also has a somewhat-annoying habit of displaying pages with odd formatting. On our test phone, the BBC News website had large white spaces on the home page that shouldn't be there. This was an issue we saw recurring on a number of other websites.

While it is undoubtedly quick, Opera Mini 7 is also disappointing and doesn't do a terribly good job or displaying web pages. Both mobile versions and full versions looked a bit ‘off' on the device, even if they did load quickly.