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New version of Opera for S60

30 replies · 10,154 views · Started 24 October 2003

Opera will next week release a new version of Opera for Series 60. We have worked hard on this for a long time and there are a number of improvements.

Many people have had memory problems with our previous version while others have it working fine. We are aware of this issue and you can find more information here: http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=260809#post260809 Note that this is only an issue with the 3650 & 7650. The other S60 devices available all have more RAM.

The new version is smaller and uses less memory. I would appreciate if those of you who have previously had memory problems try the new version and post your experience in this thread.

If you still have problems, please post the relevant links, your country and operator. Try to turn off JavaScript in the settings and see if that helps.

Don't despair if you still have problems. We have one more option which should solve all memory issues. I just want feedback here first to see if what we have done so far does the job or if we will have to take it one step further.

Please open different threads to discuss the new release in general. Only reply here if you can report that you no longer have problems or that they are still there.

Posting this a few days in advance to make sure that when the release is out we will get feedback quickly.

Your help is much appreciated.

Best,

Dag Olav Norem
Opera Software

This is great news. Will existing Opera for Series 60 registered users get the upgrade for free? If so how and when?

I am glad to see Opera responding to customer feedback like this. I love the product, just don't want to have to reboot my phone everytime I want to use the browser.

Thanks again,
lenn

Yes, forgot to mention that. It will be a free upgrade for registered users. All you need to do is install on the same phone, it will automatically pick up the registration details from the previous version.

Originally posted by donpedro
1. Opera will next week release a new version of Opera for Series 60. We have worked hard on this for a long time and there are a number of improvements.

2. Note that this is only an issue with the 3650 & 7650. The other S60 devices available all have more RAM.

Dear Dag Olav Norem,

1. Obviously that your team did not work hard or take lots of thing into consideration or show any concern when all of you working on old version Opera softwares that meant for phones that has been long released the Nokia Series 60 7650/3650 phones. That was a very lousy work guys!

2. What other S60 devices were available and selling when the first Series60 Opera releases, other than 7650/3650?
Can tell you that there were none!

And how can anyone of you think that, if there were user wanting to use the Opera but only to find out that we cannot install any more other much greater programs than Opera because of memory issue? A great phone like 7650/3650/N-gage can only good to use only Opera? Common guys... this is nonsence. Really!

I'm writing this reply was not mean to tarnishing you guys, but seriously I think your team should work harder and think things for all thinkable reasons before releasing any softwares.

Bye!

NewForce, please see http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=260809#post260809 for answers. "Memory" means several different things on a S60 phone.

As for disk space, yes, Opera is a big application for a mobile phone. Even the new version will require 765KB disk space. It is each users choice if the functioniality offered by Opera is that important for you. With a 7650 and less than 4MB user memory you would have to be very interested to spend almost 20% on a browser. But with a 3650 and 16MB memory card there should be enough space for most people. We recommend installing on MMC.

Dag Olav Norem
Opera Software

Well, I just have to say that Opera is the very best piece of software I have on my 3650. Yes, it does run out of memory and i'm delighted to hear that as an existing customer I'll get the new version for free because, even when running out of memory, it is still the single most useful thing on my phone.

I manage a website for a living, through a web console, and the freedom that Opera has given me to do this, from anywhere, is tremendous and worth way more than I paid for it.

I appreciate too that it must have been an extremely complex piece of engineering so I'm not licking arse here but giving credit where I think it's due. The icon menu system is also something that deserves great praise and a system that should be emulated by all S60 programs.

Keep up the great work!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-Jim.
http://mmsmemo.blogspot.com

donpedro
[D]J said on your forum

1. Hi, I bought the Opera Browser for my 3650 and also for my girlfriend's 7650 phone.
On both phones where I installed it (I mean both phones EMPTY, just formatted and so with zero applications installed) Opera simply gives a *VERY* frustrating browsing experience. I had to uninstall it because I got so nervous with it. The annooying "Memory Full" error in fact happens all the times and doesn't really matter if you close down all the running applications because, even if the Browser "seems" to work at first, after a few minutes of browsing and page changing you get the infamous "Memory Full" message again.

2. Ok, you developers say that it's not Opera fault but phone limited memory but other Series60 browsers like NetFront (which I bought too) are almost as complete as Opera (have JavaScript support too), even bigger in size than Oper but gives ZERO memory problems! I'm sorry to say that I wasted my money and if there was a possibility I'd like to be refunded because the Browser as it is is really unusable. I wonder how you can even think to sell a program which simply doesn't work.
3. I have reinstalled Doris Browser and put Opera to shame...

donpedro replies

4. Why does Opera use so much of it?
Opera is a full Web-browser. The browser for Series 60 has the same engine as Opera 6 for Windows. Over 4 million people used this for their daily browsing. From a Windows perspective it is a tiny program, but for a mobile phone it is still quite big.

When Opera is installed on internal disk or MMC it first has to be loaded in RAM (unlike apps in ROM which execute in place). Opera is roughly 1.5MB (only 870KB on disk, but that is because of in-built compression). This means that if you have 2.5MB RAM available, only 1MB is actually available for displaying web-pages. A smaller browser application (e.g. Doris) will have more RAM available for browsing.

5. Why did Opera release a useless product?
We didn't. These problems came as a complete surprise to us. We have more than fifteen 7650/3650 in the office and do not have major problems on any of them. On big sites (e.g www.vg.no, 500KB, 114 images...) we get the same problems, but not on most normal web sites.

6. Why do some people have problems and others not?
We don't know. Our phones work fine. A lot of people have no problems at all. Others can barely launch the browser.

We know that some third-party memory resident applications can trigger problems, but there are also reports from people with brand new phones. We have so far not been able to narrow it down to firmware or other phone characteristics.

All we can say at the moment is please try on your own phone. A lot of people out there are very happy with the browser.

7. What are we going to do about it?
We have put a lot of effort into reducing the executable size of Opera (and thereby freeing more RAM for displaying pages). Please understand that this is not a trivial task. We will release a new version in the first half of Q4 which we hope will alleviate the memory problems for most people. It will also have a number of other improvements. It will be a free upgrade.

8. What can you do about it?
Reboot your phone (will defragment memory and kill idle processes). Turn off JavaScript. Turn off images.
Wait for the new version of Opera.
Future S60 phones should have more RAM and Opera will then run without problems on these. (There is no significant difference between the 7650 and 3650. If anything, the 7650 is slightly better.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And now my view of points and reply to all the numbers,

1. With that happening can confirmed Opera 1st release was a badly programmed software no matter how good the features is.

2. Wrong answer OPERA DEVELOPER!
How can any of you said that is was the phone memory problem, huh?
Your team developed a software that was meant for that phone which has been release on the market for so several month, you odd to be taking all the things that can be happening into consideration before releasing it. Further more your team using it to developed and test your software?
So common guys lets WAKE-UP OK?

3. Agreed!

4. Even you have 40millions people behind OPERA for Windows, it is still a completely crab software when come under Nokia Symbian Series 60 phones.
Both 7650 and the later 3650/N-Gage having 3.5MB useable RAM memory when completely new.
Let's make a quick and simple calculation :
a. After copy in numbers of Contacts (say 200 with 3 no 1 email in each), used personal color picture as standby screen background image, it take away 200KB. They left 3.3MB RAM.
b. Installed only OPERA, take away another 870KB. They left 2.4MB RAM (round it off to 900KB).
c. Run OPERA that take total 1.5MB to run, they left only 900KB RAM space.

Oh my God! Most of the latest information webpages nowaday having lots of big or small pictures, animation, sound and flash that easily take memory space more than 4~600KB and some of them even go up for more than 1MB. So Opera became completely problem and useless for web browsing on the phone after only 1.5 pages or so. THIS IS TOTALLY BAD! THIS IS NOT GOOD GUYS!

5. Full credits to those who posted to ask this great question.
With your answer, it show all of you did not done a good job. Only tested 15 phones within your office only? And tested with problem going into big web sites?
OMG! It totally shown to the world how daring you guy was to still releasing the OPERA software.

6. Can tell you guy straight in the face that it is the OPERA causes all the memory problem not the great 7650/3650 phone.

7. By reducing the size of Opera is not good enough. Why not try making a different version for it to make use of 3650/N-Gage/6600 MMC memory card space and with another smaller lighter version purely for 7650.

8. No! No! No! Wrong anser!
How many time do you guys expecting Opera users to reboot the phone and while browsing the web halfway?
If same thing happen on Windows, Microsoft would never became a Great Giant as they were now.
You guy develop Opera 1st version for "more RAM Future S60 phones" ?
My godness, to what nonsense are all of you talking about?

7650 slightly better?
And the Opera 1st version has just been sentenced to death on a low memory 7650!

So for godsake,! Try all the best to make Opera much much smaller or try makei t to run on Nokia Series 60 phone MMC memory card space will ya? If so then lots of people will appreciate your software and that's including me.
Many thanks in advance!

New Force.

You comments do not help, Opera is a large bit of software that offers the most comprehensive browser available on a phone.

Yes its not a perfect product yet but they are developing the product all the time. and working hard at it.

Opera is a product that many people are very happy with even if they get occasional memory problems.

I 'd know that.

But in the world of
"Customer Our Big Boss and Customer Are Always Right",
I'm wondering just how far or great can Opera actually go without adopting this great policy that think every company should be using.

I just wanted to say something, N-gage has a lot more RAM than teh 3650, around 11MB free, so there is no problem in runing opera in the N-gage, I believe that the 6600 also has 16MB of RAM.

You'r right, but we're not talking about storage memory, we're talking about RAM, on your computer you can't compare the harddrive with the RAM, the 3650 has 4MB of storage memory (internal) and 8MB of RAM, the N-gage also has 4MB of internal storage memory (think of it as an harddrive if you wish) and 16MB of RAM. The 6600 has 6MB of internal storage memory and 16MB of RAM, etc... Oh yes, the Sendo X has around 32MB of free internal storage memory and 16MB of RAM also.

There is also a thing you should know about nokia serie 60 device, the Operating System takes around 5MB of teh available RAM, that's why on the 3650 you have around 3MB of free RAM, sometimes more, sometimes less and in the N-gage you have around 11MB free, sometimes more, sometimes less. Those are facts, I'm deeply sorry that you don't understand the difference between common storage media and RAM.

Don't want to point out again but again you're wrong.

The internal memory you're talikng about actually we and the industry named it RAM or Flash memory, and in the phone named as C drive.

And Nokia Series 60 platform + Symbian-OS v6.1 phone operating system, running on the ROM (which is only readable), and in the phone named as Z drive.
3650 having around 22MB and 7650 around 16MB ROM.

Originally posted by NewForce
Don't want to point out again but again you're wrong.

The internal memory you're talikng about actually we and the industry named it RAM or Flash memory, and in the phone named as C drive.


I hate to say, but you are wrong and Fleet-C is right in this RAM issue. You should install e.g. SymbianWare AppMan which shows you both RAM and free disk space.

I don't hate to say it but you in the industry are very wrong and simeonbubblegum and Fleet-C are very right.🙄

Ok, I've downloaded and installed the new 6.1 Opera browser and was really liking it until....... I hit a BIG snag! That web console page through which I manage my website, as I mentioned above, could not be rendered due to the browser not being able to find a template!

That's a bit of a showstopper for me folks because it was for the purpose of managing that site that I bought the browser in the first place. So, can you tell me what's going on here please? Why is the new browser not able to render a page that the old browser had no problems with 😞

Trap4,

Hard to say what the problem is without more detail. Do you have a URL? Or can you describe the steps you take to trigger the problem? Try turning JavaScript on/off.

I can't think of any reason why it should not work in the new version. We have made a number of improvements to Small-Screen Rendering, most notably with frames and numeric tables. and fixed lots of minor issues.

Any feedback on the memory issue? Better/worse?

I downloaded it yesterday to try out on my ngage.

Worked fine for a bit (I have 2900 free mem on the ngage, opera is installed on the MMC)

Bu I noticed that on www.c64.com (which I admit is quite a complicated site.. with multiple frames) it downloaded ol.. but I clicked right on the joystick to navigate and opera crashed with a App Ended error?

I had it set to no picture/animations/javascript.. i.e no to everything..

Matt

Hornma, I tested on my 6600 and did not get a crash. I'll forward the problem to QA and see if we can reproduce. Thanks for the report.

The N-Gage has much more memory so you will not have any memory issues with that device.

Thanks... I was also using standard GSM data call rather than GPRS.. which I guess should not cause any issues other than it being slower (hence why I turned off all the graphics etc etc)

Cheers

Matt

Well there's no point in me giving you the URL because it's the Admin control panel for an InfoPop OpenTopic message board. I can view the message board fine but have a few problems with other pages, such as the 'All new posts' search. I think this might be something to do with a cache issue. I turned off javasript by the way.

As regards the memory issue it's definitely better but I still manage to run out of it. Overall though I notice that performace is much better and pages render more quickly. If I could just get my admin console working again I'd be raving about the improvements 🙄

Thanks,
-Jim.
http://mmsmemo.blogspot.com

Ivomir, thanks for your feedback. As I stated at the beginning of this thread we really want users to let us know whether the improvements made so far solve the memory issues or not. In your case the answer is obviously no. But are you really using an N-Gage? As far as I know the final production version of the N-gage has 16MB RAM whereof approx 10-11MB is available after the OS is loaded. With that kind of RAM Opera would not have any memory problems whatsoever.

Anyone else have similar or better experiences?

Dag Olav Norem
Opera Software

dondepro,i just wan't to thank you for an excelent produc,i'm still using the old version of Opera with my 7650 and never had any problem with it.I'll download the new version today and give you my feedback.

Ivomir,

NEW VERSION OF OPERA IS TOTALY SHIT

STILL HAVE SO BIG MEMORY USAGE (2,4MB OF FREE RAM)
FUCK THIS SOFTWARE

AND N-GAGE HAVE 10 MB RAM (SCREENSHOTS ON http://nokia.iwebs.cz)

Please watch your language,the forums are civilized way of communication,I've seen more polite outbursts in the flea market.Consider this a warning.

Well I carried on trying it out last night.. Seems fine.. I was using it and also the demo of Netfront as a comparison.

Opera seemed quicker and has a few more useful options.. though somehow I screwed up with the previous demo version.. so when I installed the new one my trial 14 days had already expired !.. so I have had to set the clock back so I get use it for a couple of days before I decide which to buy.

As to system Ram.. from nosing around on my ngage with fexplorer it looks like :

C: (Flash Ram) drive (4 MB total - Free 2.9MB I do not install much on the c drive at all)
D: (Ram) 380kb total - Free 377kb)
E: MMC Card so irrelevant
Z: ROM ( 17.68MB total 0 Free)

[edit] Just noticed the FreeMem bit on Fexplorer.. it seems I have 11MB free 😊.. So is there internal RAM which is not listed ?

Or am I barking up the wrong tree ? Regardless I have been hitting my usual forum websites with Opera .. not had any out of memory errors..

BTW a nice to have enhancement would be the ability to clear your history/URL lists.. I could not find a neat way of clearing down where u had been without re-installing..

Cheers

Matt

"[edit] Just noticed the FreeMem bit on Fexplorer.. it seems I have 11MB free .. So is there internal RAM which is not listed ?"

That's right, Fexplorer only lists drives, as you know, RAM is not a drive.

both Switcher (freeware) and Appman give the available memory

I am not sure if it the customized firware that Cingular has or what, but for the life of me, I can't get Opera to start UNLESS I do safe mode and even then I can't browse. AppMan even says that I can have like 2.7 MB free but Opera still don't open.

after formating the phone and keeping MMC in tact, I can now use Opera on a limited basis. Some pages like My-Symbian and Reuters crash the app though. I have tried disabling JavaScript and changes images to load some, but still crashing.

Additional difficulties with Hotmail in that JavaScript has to be enabled to log on, and when I try to use the retreive POP mail function (polling for mail from other accounts), Opera is not able to complete the command