[PegS]

On my phone I use Opera Mini and XScope (because a few sites don't seem to work properly on Opera).

Over the last three days I downloaded and tested Opera Mini, XScope, Dolphin HD, and Skyfire--all of which I've also tested before on my phone.

The ones I ended up with on my NC are Opera Mini for simple browsing, alternating with Dolphin HD.

Here are my initial experiences.*

Skyfire. Just criminally slow. Ugh. The selling point of Skyfire compared to other browsers is the integrated Flash function but it was just too slow for me to care.

Dolphin HD. The newest version is incredibly fast for a full-featured browser. It was fast enough that I didn't feel the need to try the new Dolphin Mini. I liked how you could swipe to unhide, on the lefthand side, your list of frequently used bookmarks, so they're easily on hand. You also swipe to unhide, on the right, a toolbar. When you open a new tab, it initially displays a list of your recently closed tabs too, which is nice. It contains, like the old Dolphin, options for gesture functions. It also now allows you to create bookmark folders so you don't have a jumble of bookmarks like in the old Dolphin. However, it seems like everything takes multiple steps, including copying text. It's still light-years better than the old Dolphin, though, and I think for anyone who likes a feature-packed browser with a bit of a learning curve it's the way to go.

XScope. Not sure if it's just an issue with the NC, because I never have these kinds of problems on my phone. For some reason, the menu option just kept disappearing ant it was impossible to do basic things, such as bookmarking, without them.

Opera Mini seems to work closest to how it works on my phone. I love the elegant appearance, and I haven't had any problems bookmarking or anything else. The pinch-zoom isn't as good as Dolphin's, though; it functions like its tap-zoom, where it seems like it only has two levels of zoom (fully out and fully zoomed). Opera Mini is more intuitive, I think, than Dolphin (though not without its own learning curve), but I can actually imagine a time when I just use Dolphin HD.

Anyway, so those are my experiences thus far. I'm hoping Firefox Mobile (aka Fennec) becomes widely available soon to see how it compares.


*I don't know how much of my issues were user error, but I was also frustrated by not being able to find decent user instructions when I encountered problems so I gave up. I figure if my desktop browsers are so intuitive I shouldn't have to go through contortions to figure things out on my mobile browsers. (Plus, I've never understood what these small-company mobile browsers can't seem to create decent user manuals?) Okay, end of rant.