Sufi Telecom: Face to Face: Interface design between UC Browser 7.4 and Opera Mini 5.1

As you may know, about half a month ago, the old brand UC Browser and Opera Mini have both recently released new version for Symbian. I have tried them and get amazing experience. The UC Browser 7.4 now looks like a wholly new designed mobile browser. That let me think of Opera Mini 5.1 also subvert its 4.x interface design.

Opera Mini has an interesting function, Speed Dial. With 9 customizable sites directing to any web page. Now UC Browser gives its answer - the renewed navigation different than ever. Not only can I select any site by clicking its icon or title, but also choose my favorite site and put into My Shortcuts(UC's implementation of Speed Dial). My Shortcuts have 8 block, while Speed Dial has 9. While UC Browser has both system of traditional Navigation Bar and Bookmarks, Opera Mini give them all in its Bookmarks. Considering UC Browser is almost the only browser have these site links besides Speed Dial and Bookmark, it keeps me from inputting URL all the time.

The Quick Links design makes a good feature that I can see them both horizon and vertical and quickly find where I want to go. This give more freedom for me. So Opera Mini picks a similar mode to calculate my definition, which depends on my choice.

While the navigation bar of UC Browser is becoming navigation square, the Cursor Mode has replaced the Common to become the default Operation Mode, what makes the browser more similar to the desktop browser. At contrast, Opera Mini performs on the desktop view as well as before, because they have the experience of product a real desktop browser.

However, in UC Browser, the cursor mode can be still found at the adaptive view, which is more or less better than ever. Opera Mini has less competitive in that mode, which they call Mobile view. The reason maybe OBML is designed for desktop, and UHTM is designed for mobile. As they say, UC Browser can display WML and XHTML directly, but Opera Mini cannot.

After I download the English version, a different starting page is there to choose the region to belong. That means all people in the world now using the same version, and the UC server may detect what sites he want to go.

Opera Mini just released Symbian version several days ago, so it cannot yet be a hard threat to UC Browser, for the latter has many features the former hasn't. For example, the most stable download manager I ever seen on a handset, an uploading system when I access some forum, and so many browser mode, such as Night Mode and the Free Copy function.

Yes, the last one is what I want to emphasize. After some months, the Free Copy comes back to Symbian. Free Copy was a great adventure in UC Browser, but it was once removed from UC Browser 7.2. Now, I can select any part of a web page, and copy to my clipboard, it seems let me copy everything on the web to my phone, so excited! Compared with Opera Mini, whose copy and paste is limited to the operating system, but no pictures and text mashup.

Nevertheless, the UC Browser has a new feedback interface, this interface is catching up with its competitors, Opera Bug Report Wizard, which yet cannot be found in Opera Mini.