For anyone who has used a feature phone or smartphone in the last decade, Opera Mini is probably a familiar name. A simple, stripped down version of the Opera browser for computers, Opera Mini has been available for almost every feature and smartphone platform and has offered a simplified browsing experience to millions of users since it was first released. However, with phone browsers having advanced at a steady pace over the last few years, Opera Mini has found its importance dwindling. But it looks like its days are not numbered yet, as Opera has announced that Opera Mini will soon be available for use on the Samsung Gear S.
Smartwatches are supposed to be companion devices to smartphones, and Opera Mini should feel quite natural on the 2-inch screen of the Gear S for the few times you need to quickly access a webpage, especially thanks to the inbuilt Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity on the Gear S. Opera has tweaked the user interface of the browser to make it fit on the small screen, and the browser will also support Opera's popular compression engine for compressing webpages and saving bandwidth. It's also notable that this version of Opera Mini will be running on Tizen, and will also come with features like private browsing.
Opera Mini will be available from the Samsung Apps store once the Gear S goes on sale this fall.
