Browser:BOLT 0.94UCWEB 6.3OM 4.2
Operating system compliance: BlackBerry+- (and they don’t plan a BB-compliant version either)+
Windows Mobile touchscreen (Professional) without a dialpad / keyboard+ (even signed)+ (with a native version; note that going to wap.ucweb.com will result in your getting the inferior Java version! The native WinMo version must be downloaded HERE – note that the page, otherwise, accessible from the general download address, only has the Chinese version. Alternatively, from the English page, you can follow the Dopod link, then, p, and, finally, for example p6500 [direct link; get the uppermost file, it's the latest version])+
Windows Mobile touchscreen with a hardware keyboard+ (even signed)++
Windows Mobile no-touchscreen (Standard) with a dialpad (and possibly a keyboard in addition)+ (even signed)++
Symbian S60+ + (even native SISX file – this also means no mobile connectivity icon in the upper left corner, unlike with OM / BOLT. Not that it’d be that important: the Symbian version doesn’t seem to have a Full Screen mode [unlike Java: Settings / General Settings / Full Screen]; that is, no active content would be hidden by this icon.)+
Layout: Original (non-one column) layout?+ (default mode)- (the biggest omission) on Java, + on Symbian / WM (Zoom mode – the default is the “Adaptive”, that is, one column mode; you can switch via Settings / Browse Mode)+
One-column layout mode?-+ (the default on Symbian / WM; there’s no original layout on Java)+
If original layout is supported, dynamic zoom in/out from text reading?- (the shared screen can’t really match the zooming of Opera Mini)+ (Symbian / WM only!)+ (in the default, non-One Column mode)
…quality of text reflowing?In cases, highly inferior to OM – must use far smaller chars to avoid having to horizontally scroll – even with Mobile View enabledPoor to acceptable (MUCH worse than that of OM): with DPReview, problems with quoted text and one-row messages; with the official UCWEB forum, no user post reflowing at all. The PPCMag blogs aren’t rendered at all (Symbian screenshot of the same). (Symbian / WM only!). In general, excellent: works just great in non-one column mode with most sites; if it doesn’t, then, One column helps this.
…does it try to keep the horizontal alignment while vertical finger scrolling (see explanation HERE)?-+ (only tested under WM; I couldn’t test this on Symbian because I don’t have a touchscreen S60 model – yet)+
…speed of horizontal positioning to the text Using the D-pad / scrollbar / dialpad, much faster than previous builds. Definitely faster on devices with a touchscreen – and under Opera Mini, though. Pretty fast even with buttons only +: generally, it only takes 2-3 quick button presses to quickly zoom into text and position to the text body
Scrolling: Quick positioning to top/bottomBlackBerry: + (T/B, respectively); WinMo: - (not even the hardware keyboard works – except for the numeric keys)- (on touchscreen-enabled devices, however, you can quickly scroll up/down)+ (repeatedly pressing #3 – or simulating it with an assigned hotkey)
(Touchscreen devices): Scrollable scrollbar-+ (scrollbar size can be set in the Java version, unlike with OM or the Symbian / WM ones)+ (they take up quite a lot of screen estate, though)
Real rubberband & inertia on touchscreen devices (see explanation HERE)?-- (Java) / + (WM)-
Character sets: VGA WinMo devices: maximal charsize (see the reason for this HERE) running under THIS hacked JbedIt uses its own charset independent of the system charsize; therefore, 3XLarge is still smaller than OM’s or UCWEB’sDefinitely bigger than BOLT’sDefinitely bigger than BOLT’s
Quality of custom charset: readability vs. (small) sizeBetter than OMn/a (uses system fonts only)Slightly worse than BOLT
Bold / italic / underline- / - / +Symbian / WM: +/+/- ; Java: -/-/- (very poor). Slight rendering problems under WM (but not Symbian): no spaces are rendered between two differently styled words.+ / - / +
Sub / superscript+ / +-/- (all the three versions)+ / +
Displaying different charsizesTwo or threeSymbian: three (with default charsize of 16; only H6 is rendered as small, nothing else; screenshots: 1 2 3); WM: one (screenshots: 1 2); Java: one (screenshot)Three
Internationalization support-: As it uses its own characters, the size settings are more dynamic but no support for non-Western languages at any charsize+ (it uses the system fonts)+: It relies on the system characters, except for the small charset. No Western support in the latter.
Multimedia: support for Web videos?+ (transcodes to 3gp and relies on a local player to play it back; currently, up to 1:30 minutes. Works on all the listed platforms out of the box, except for WM Classic, where a 3gp-capable player needs to be installed)- (YouTube isn’t supported at all in any of the versions; complains of lack of Flash / JavaScript support)-
Multitabs: does it support keeping more than one page in memory?- (no in-memory caching at all – bad!)++ (depends on size; in general, up to 30)
(For touchscreen users:) On-screen tabs for quick switching?n/a+ (in Java, you can even select their size: when minimized, they’re only a pixel high but still clickable. In WM, you can’t achieve this by switching to full screen mode. Under Symbian, no unnecessary [unclickable] tabs take up the screen estate)- (takes quite a few clicks to switch documents if you don’t use keyboard hacks:
(For dialpad users:) Shortcut for quick switching between pages?n/a++ (#5 to access the document list)
Does it force the user to reload pages upon pressing Back?+--
Can you directly tell the browser to open a new page in a (background) new window (tab)?n/a+ (after highlighting / selecting a link, both New tab and Background new tab – excellent!)-: all you can do with a link (through the context menu’s [1 / long tap], Link) is opening the page (selectably with images) and showing the address without copying capabilities (albeit switching back to the previous page is pretty easy, particularly if you have a hardware dialpad)
Closing unwanted tabsn/aUnder Symbian and Java, excellent: Close current (with shortcut “C” on Symbian) / Close Others. Under WM, Close Others isn’t available- (tabs can only be automatically discarded from memory)
Copy from current page: Entire document?-+ (note that after selecting anything to copy, you’ll need to go to Clipboard Manager [Menu / Tools / Clipboard or #3]; it’s only there that you can directly edit the previously copied texts and select / copy anything you want)-
Current viewport only?-+-
Selected link?-+- (you can, however, follow the link and, then, edit the then-current address to get the link)
Address of selected image?-+-
Misc: Find in page++ in Symbian / Java; - in WM. (under Symbian, there’s also a “Find Next” [in addition to “Find in page”] in the Tools menu, NOT under Java – in that, you can in no way find the next occurrence, unlike with Bolt / OM)+
User-agent redefining:- (hope this will be implemented – after all, Thunderhawk did support this)+ under Java (Empty / Phone default U-A / Openwave / Opera), - under Symbian or WM (there, under “Network”, only the default access point or the connection group can be set)-
Keyboard / dialpad key shortcuts+Under Symbian / Java (but not WM): Excellent, even redefinable (screenshots of the accessible methods: Java; Symbian: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 [note that I haven’t made a screenshot of all of the dialog pages!])+
Download manager?-+ (excellent, you can set a lot of parameters in the two native versions [Symbian screenshot of the same]– but not in the Java one [screenshot of Settings]. Nevertheless, the latter is also pretty nice.)-
W3C test resultsgoodreally poor (Symbian; WM; no Java screenshot as it doesn't at all support non-one column views, which further worsens the results.). For example, unlike with the two other browsers, the JavaScript links on the left of DPReview can’t be invoked at all.good
Image zoom to see images at their original resolution / quality (not at the dumbed-down, downsampled one)-+- (only if you save them and read back from the file system)
Favorite synchronization-- (albeit you can export / import your favorites in the Symbian [but not the Java!] version)+ (Opera Link; can be – manually – synced even with non-Opera desktop browsers)