Opera unveils Mobile 9.5 beta

Opera Mobile is now loaded on 100 million phones.

Opera has taken the wraps off a beta version of its latest mobile browser, Opera Mobile 9.5.

First launched in 2000, Opera Mobile gained fame as one of the first mobile browsers to bring full web browsing to the mobile screen and has since found its way onto some 100 million phones.

Available for Windows Mobile and selected Series 60 handsets Opera Mobile is accompanied by a free, lower-end version called Opera Mini.

Opera Mobile 9.5 uses the same zoom technology as Opera Mini, but also allows the user to save pages and images.

The company claims to have completely renovated the user interface, and said that Opera Mobile 9.5 is "the most standards-compliant mobile browser available " as well as being one of the fastest.

"Opera has always been among the fastest browsers, if not the fastest, available," the company says on its website.

"Opera Mobile 9.5 beta continues this fine tradition with noticeable speed improvements over Opera Mobile 8.65 and IE Mobile."

It also comes with the usual software developer's health warnings that accompany beta releases.

"This product is a beta release. As such, there will be bugs. This release is intended for developers and advanced users. It may cause data loss or other unintended actions," Opera warns.