I'm confused. I've been using the most recent release of Opera Mobile and think it's a pretty good browser. The other day I decided to try out Opera Mini. I downloaded the current release as well as the beta and both of them do a much better job at rendering a web page than Opera Mobile. For example, a page like ESPN.com is absolutely brutal to look at and takes forever to load with Opera Mobile and PIE. Opera Mini gives a much better result and the beta does an impressive job of rendering the entire site.

The only negative I've found so far is that I can't access my banking information with Mini. So what gives, shouldn't Opera Mobile be much better at surfing the web?

Opera Mobile runs standalone on your device -- that's why it's slower. It processes the entire page itself. Opera Mini pages are sent to your device by a server which processes the pages for you. The result is much faster page loading with somewhat less stellar graphics. Also, depending on your device, Java can be a bit if a pain to run.

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Motorola Q, WM5 -- Verizon Wireless, U.S.A.