Opera's press release today caught my eye not because of the “It's been used to look at ten billion web pages in a month” headline, but the top ten list of countries using Opera Mini. In order, these were Russia, Indonesia, India, China, Ukraine, South Africa, U.S., U.K., Poland and then Nigeria. Now I could pull out a list of top countries for the internet as a whole, but that's not going to be comparing like with like, but the thing is that many of them have the US, UK and mainland European countries high up on the list.
Read on in the full article.
what's the phone model on the right?
Not only are there folks who mobile only in the countries you mentioned, but there are plenty in the US & Europe as well. I have a friend who has never updated their phone due to a lack of computer access, she doesn't have one at work (hairdresser) and doesn't have one at home - her phone is her computer.
I didn't know I was in line with my Russian , Chinese , Indian , etc brothers . Living like an underdevelloped person , my only computer is the E90 . In case more people are going decide this : it saves a lot of Megawatts for the future generation .
There are some hickups :
1) I use an older Phone to manage Calender Backup
2) I would like to Copy MemoryCard content , approximally 6GB . So why there is no USB connection to a cardreader ? It's a lot of work to copy first from E: to C: , and then move the files to a new Card , changing Cards every ~70 MB .
3) Because lack of FOTA , you need a computer !
4) To avoid TV set purchase , there should be a DVB-T tuner , with an external antenna , like the FM radio . Lenco's PhotoFrame can do this !
Btw : The Mini Opera compressing and security system is fabulous .
😊 Regards jApi NL
I agree wholeheartedly with this article.
A Linux user, these days I keep a Windows partition only for phone-related matters. First, with the N82, for Map Loader and Software Updater. Then, with the 5800, only for Map Loader. Now with the Samsung i8910 I finally eliminated the dependency from Nokia Map Loader (Samsung LBS is capable of downloading map packs over the air from the handset), but I'm dependent once again on Software Updater. Will the day ever arrive when I can finally get rid of Windows?
first words out of a friends mouth when he was talking me into getting a vario3 after getting a duff e90 were well you can hook it up to a pc to download your apps.i must be one of the few people that refuses to tether my mobile to a pc despite having a desk,laptop and a netbook aswell.sure iv added a couple of apps ota to the vario3 using cabs but have added loads to my s60s without any extra help.my argument is my mobile is my mobile and shouldnt need my pc to function and after many years of using s60 that way hope it stops that way too.
Re. the opening paragraph and Opera Mini,
When I was living/working in China, there was something that OM in a Symbian or otherwise mobile could do that the vast majority of computers couldn't. Going through Opera's proxy server was the only way I had to access news and reports on my 9300i of the Tibetan demonstrations and subsequent crackdown in spring, 2008.
I lived in the US and in Asia (Philippines) for a while. They charge so much for Data and require contracts in the US so I never even subscribe. It's probably 10 times the cost as in Asia. And it's hard to believe that a supposedly third world country had 3G first than the USA. Carriers there are really dragging mobile technology down for at least a year. And they charge for incoming everything. 😞
I lived in laos for years,
I was trying to give one of my lao friends an email account. He'd never had email before and wanted to contact me when I left. I signed him up, then showed him the computer. He stared at it like a deer in headlights, couldn't type and using the mouse was a joke. I noticed he was trying to type using the number keys instead of the qwerty so we tried using the email on the phone. A crappy sony K700 with opera mini...what a seachange! He was far more comfortable with that than any computer.
I have a laptop at work and one at home. I am from India. My sister has one PC at home at one laptop at work.
Between two of us, we have four laptops and only 2 phones. Me having nokia n79 and she a Samsung S series.
Perhaps 80% of our total web browsing happens on phone and the reason is because of mobility.
Whenever we are on the move, we browse. Even at home, it's so easy to open to my apps for twitter, facebook on my mobile and browse than opening the laptop and sitting at one place.
You need computers to do heavy work, not for some light hearted browsing. Another reason is, my total bills for voice and data even after heavy usage comes to around $30. In most of the developed world, only the data charges are almost the double of my total usage for the kind of load I give to my network.
So yes,
1. Mobility
2. Ease
3. Cost
drive me to use more of internet on my mobile rather than on a laptop.
One major hinderance for us is lack of wi fi. Either get that cable broadband for those slow creepy EDGE USBs, which drive you nuts. So, it IS ACTUALLY easier to browse on mobile than on laptops. At least in my case!!
Hi,
I lived in SE Asia, it's Indonesia.
1. I wanna comment about nokia Ovi. The ovi files in nokia has a flaw. It needs a computer to activate the feature. What if I just wanna share/backup a file from my phone. Why I need a computer???
2. Lots of successful businessman/businesswoman in SE Asia were 50-70 years old that were 'somewhat' computer illiterate. They can use computer for word processor, some spreadsheet and email but have some difficulties to do beyond that. Some even worse, they can't use the computer at all. I have a couple of relative which is a 50+ years old businessman who will call my phone to open an email for him to read it for him. Some of them have an income more than US$20K/month, but they already too old for computer. When I teach him to open the email from the computer, it took me 2-3 days and when he didn't get any mail for 1 weeks, he will forget how to open email. BUT when I teach him to receive email from his Nokia 6600 (that time the 6600 smartphone were just released). They could learn it in less than 20 minute. And they never forget on how to do it.
3. Why would you need a computer to read email, if phone can do just fine? I only use computer to read email or web pages whenever my phone couldn't handle it, or when I wanna write something long. Other than that, I use my cellular.
4. The price of internet from cellular phone has drop a lot in SE Asia, along with proxy based opera that saved our bandwith (read: money).
5. I also know a couple of businessman that keeping track his portfolio of share on his cellular. Because he always bring his cellular (not his notebook)
rvirga wrote:I agree wholeheartedly with this article.
A Linux user, these days I keep a Windows partition only for phone-related matters. First, with the N82, for Map Loader and Software Updater. Then, with the 5800, only for Map Loader. Now with the Samsung i8910 I finally eliminated the dependency from Nokia Map Loader (Samsung LBS is capable of downloading map packs over the air from the handset), but I'm dependent once again on Software Updater. Will the day ever arrive when I can finally get rid of Windows?
Just an information to you.
Nokia has acquire trooltech. Trooltech is the maker of QT, the based of KDE in Linux and most of embedded Linux device. And the Nokia Software Suite (NSS) has been ported to QT. Future release of NSS were build on QT. And Linux release of NSS is not really far away. It's already available in Alpha version at nokia. It will be released soon.
I am from India. I don't quite agree with the argument that mobile internet in India will explode
because the mobile phone is the only internet gateway to the world for many people in India.
There is phenomenal growth in the mobile penetration in India but that's the low end non-smartphone devices that play FM.
SMS and FM are the most popular features today. Mobile Internet is way too expensive for the normobs to use.
Many people don't have computers at home because they cannot afford it. The alternative, a smart phone is as expensive or costs more. For e.g. a Nokia 5800 XPressMusic, a great internet device is about Rs. 16500 and an inexpensive Intel Centrino based desktop can be purchased for the same price.
The people who can't afford to buy a PC cannot afford to buy a smartphone. They can buy a series 40 device that has Ovi built-in but the internet access costs from mobiles are still expensive for the average joe.
The second part is that the smartphone savvy user who uses the mobile for internet access most likely has a computer at home and knows what to look for on the mobile internet and he only uses the mobile as a second gateway to the internet.
Finally, I have the 5800 XPressMusic and I use any freely available wifi connection to access the internet. Using GPRS/Edge is far too expensive and very slow for my comfort. And 3G is yet to launch in a big way in India. And it will be doubly expensive.
My 2c worth.