The State of Mobile Web Browsing

I’ve been using the PalmOS platform since 98. Not much has changed since then. I still remember how excited I was when I found out Palm released the Tungsten W. Finally a Palm device that can connect to Wi-fi for web browsing and email. When I finally got my hands on it, I wasn’t impressed. Fast forward to 2007… I’m still using PalmOS (Treo 700p) and I still can’t browse the web properly with the default browser (Blazer). The good news is that EVDO is much faster than 1xRTT. The bad news is the same crappy user experience. I’ve tried Opera Mini in hopes that it will solve my browsing issues, yet combined with IBM’s Java implementation on the Palm, my Treo just freezes randomly, requiring reset after reset. This happened to both my 650 and 700p. Do I really have to wait for the iPhone for some pretty good phone browsing experience? I’ve tried IE on Windows Mobile and am not too impressed (I’ve disliked Windows Mobile from the start, especially with the way it handles memory).

Today, Universe 3 RC1 is out. I’m hoping this will be a good change for web browsing on the PalmOS and the mobile landscape in general. I will be testing this browser out for the next several days in “real world situations”. Hopefully I’ll have something positive to say about it.