Opera Mini on the Sidekick
Not to be outdone by the Helio Ocean addicts, one intrepid hacker writes us to let us know that the Sidekick (tested on the Sidekick iD and Sidekick 3) is also capable of running Opera Mini and he got it working. Don’t expect to see this in the catalog any time soon though, as it is doubtful T-Mobile would allow it. Currently it’s only available for people in the developer community which you’ll need to be a Java programmer in order to get into. But then again, unlike the Helio Ocean, the Sidekick already has an awesome browser that works and doesn’t really need replacing.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I had a kick and now I have an ocean and I can tell you first hand The ocean has a WAY better browser. not only is it a million times faster, Its also HTML or Mobile browser. Oh yes, you can also zoom in and out, oh and you can bring up an image list of all the pictures on the page, selecting them and downloading them or emailing them. Not sure where you are getting your info on the kicks browser being better…. but I’ve had mine since it came out and even to this day new things come out to get me giddy all over again.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:20 pm
We actually bought an Ocean and were infuriated by the nonintuitive interface, the inability to switch out of the browser into another app and then back into the browser, the defaulting to mobile versions all of the time, and the lack of support for various pages. Exiting the browser to see that a friend had IM’d to say “lol” and then having to restart the browser, and reload the page was the final straw. Not to mention that the browser on a device geared towards messaging doesn’t recognize a “mailto:” link that brings up the email client automatically.
August 21st, 2007 at 6:35 pm
sounds like small gripes to me. sure, Exiting out of th application does suck but lets be honest here. this is a phone. and usually when you have to look something up online, its really bang bang. Just the other day I was at a giants football game, and i wanted to look up the opposing teams quarterback. I got to the official HTML website of the Texans in seconds, got news and information on the quarterback and got the whole schedule all by typing out the guys name right from the jump page. For quick access and things such as that, it beats the pants off the Kicks browser… But if you are somehow going to make it your one and only Internet browser, it wouldn’t work. But neither would any other cell phones browser.
August 21st, 2007 at 6:53 pm
we could debate back and forth, but I think it all boils down to the fact that the Ocean is made for quick one-thing-at-a-time usage, while the Sidekick is made for multitasking. Those that multitask on a device aren’t willing to give it up so easily.
Just this morning I was waiting at the bus stop for the bus into the city, I started loading the bus prediction page (www.nextbus.com) and while I waited for it to load, I checked and replied to an IM from a friend, read an email or two, and read through my text message notifications from Twitter. And that wasn’t that the page took time to load, it’s just that the sidekick is made for that kind of stuff. Since I’m always on the go, it is my internet browser, and it’s usually good enough for most of the things I need to do. Although I would love to have a GPS receiver and official Google Maps support on the Sidekick.
August 21st, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Meh, it doesn’t really matter in the end. Both are great devices and to be really honest i do miss my kick. But the I just feel the ocean has more features that I like and that are geared to my preferences, as well as being smaller. I just wish that I didn’t go with the 2 year plan in case the Sidekick 4 blows me out of the water. (Which i don’t expect to be honest.) But if Helio doesn’t come with a new device in about a year or a year and a half, I may look into getting the newest sidekick available at the time. I’ll always be a true SK owner at heart, but It all depends. I’m super super SUPER happy with my ocean as of now 😀
August 21st, 2007 at 7:12 pm
I also bought an Ocean, and ended up returning it pretty quickly because I loathed the browser. As noted above, the Ocean doesn’t multitask, which to me was a deal-breaker by itself. But there was also the fact that the Ocean browser defaults to absurdly stripped down “mobilized” versions of web pages. Newspaper sites that I frequent were frequently broken down into 4 or more pages. Yeah, they load fast, but then I have to load the next part, and the next, and the next. Or I could load the HTML version, but always having to load the mobile version first pretty much ate up whatever speed advantage the Ocean had. There was no instant access to Google Search within the browser (Yahoo is no substitute). And there was the fact that the Ocean automatically exits the browser after a couple of minutes of inactivity. For years I’ve whipped my Sidekick from my pocket and read the news whenever I’ve had a spare minute. But with the Ocean I just spent all my time relaunching my browser and reloading my web pages. I felt the Helio built a web browser for phone users who don’t use web browsers.
It’s too bad, because I thought the Ocean was a sweet piece of hardware. But the software was frankly retarded, in my opinion. The browser was so bad, I didn’t even spend much time exploring the other features of the Ocean before I returned it.
(I’m not a platform loyalist though. I’m eyeing some of those new Windows Mobile 6 phones.)
September 2nd, 2007 at 11:18 am
Can someone explain how I can get opera mini on my sidekick I tried signing up for the developer program I have a username but I got lost when installing the program.
April 4th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Why would you want opera mini on your sidekick? You have the web browser. Is it free to use once its on or what? Anyway you have unlimited data on hiptop browser
September 10th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Not all sites load properly in the built in browser of sidekick, Opera Mini tends to load many pages properly, so how do you get this software?
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:18 pm
I just got a 2008 sk. It’s great, but some pages don’t fully load as they do with opera mini. Before, I had a crappy sony slider. Most of the functions failed within a few months, but I was able to run opera on it. it’s a pity that with such a great upgrade, somethings had to be sacrificed. Over all though, I’m pleased with my sk. The improvements since the last one I had (sk 2) are quite vast. The only thing missing in my opinion is the ability to run opera mini. I guess I’ll just have to deal with it until te bugs get worked out.
February 17th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
The sidekick browser blows
March 27th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Its interesting that we all wrote these i just bought a sidekick 08 my last phone being a boost moto w350 im on my sidekick right now finding out and cant have the browser that made me a myspace mobsters addict
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:51 pm
graciaas
October 13th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
where can i download this thing?can you make a tutorial on how to download and put the opera mini on to the sidekick?
June 3rd, 2012 at 6:06 pm
Hola, yo tengo el sidekick lx 2,009 en Guatemala, y la verdad he estado buscando donde me lo pueden configurar para que acceda a la web pero al parecer no se puede por que esta sujeto al plan de datos de T-mobile.. Me dijeron que accede a la web, pero con otro navegador y uno bueno es Opera mini, pero no se como instalarlo, al parecer es solo en catálogos de descargas del teléfono.. ¿Alguien me puede ayudar con mi problema? Por favor ayuden me!!! mi correo para facebook es: andreszapeta11@hotmail.com