Tips & tricks to optimize Opera Mobile 9.5 on T-Mobile Touch Pro2

Diving a bit deeper into the Opera Mobile installation on my new T-Mobile Touch Pro2 revealed that this is version 9.5 (build 16643). Opera Mobile 9.7 beta is the version I tested out and showed how it smoked even the iPhone 3GS browser due to the Turbo mode where it uses the Opera servers to speed things up. While digging through the configuration settings of Opera Mobile 9.5 I found out that you can enable a Turbo mode on your T-Mobile Touch Pro2. (UPDATE: This is NOT the Turbo mode found in Opera Mobile 9.7, but another setting as explained below.) You need to go into a special area where you must use a bit of caution, but Turbo mode is clearly there. I did not know there was Turbo support in 9.5 and thought it was only in version 9.7, but maybe it is in the 9.5 version that ships from OEMs since I have yet to see a standalone download for version 9.5.

Simply go to the URL field and enter opera:config and you will enter a world of settings like you have never seen before. This is fair warning that you should be careful here because you may mess things up, but you should always be able to get back to default with a hard reset if you do.

A couple of key settings I changed on my Touch Pro2 were the following:

• Enabled Turbo mode
• Set Opera Mobile as the default browser
• Increased the number of supported tabs

Update: Enable Turbo mode (not THE Turbo mode though)

Readers over on WM Experts pointed out that this Turbo check box is not actually for the proxy-based Turbo Mode, but is used for faster image loading only. I then downloaded the latest beta of Opera Mobile 9.7 with Turbo and did a comparison of loading web pages (found most to be at least 3 times faster in Opera Mobile 9.7 with Turbo on) to confirm that indeed there is NO Turbo mode in 9.5 and this setting is used for something else. Sorry to get your hopes up folks, but you can still use the Opera Mobile 9.7 beta if you want screaming speed on your Touch Pro2. At least the other two Opera Mobile tips both work and help out.

Turbo mode combines the server power seen in Opera Mini with the full browser technology of Opera Mobile so you get the best of both worlds with some heavy lifting done on the Opera servers. To enable this follow these steps:

1. Enter opera:config as the URL
2. Scroll down to User Prefs and tap on it to open the submenus
3. Scroll down to Turbo Mode and tap the checkbox under the words to enable it.
4. Scroll down and tap on Save.

UPDATED: Set Opera Mobile as the default browser

For some odd reason T-Mobile set the Internet Explorer Mobile browser up as the default browser on the TouchFLO 3D tab and I have yet to find a way to change how links there work. The version of Internet Explorer Mobile installed actually seems quite usable and better than on versions I have tried before. As stated in the Pocketnow.com review this version of IE Mobile is a mixture of IE6, IE7, and IE8 technologies. I could not find anywhere in the browser what the version number is and continue to hunt it down.

UPDATED: I discovered that setting Opera Mobile 9.5 as the default browser for hyperlinks works at times, but after trying a couple of Twitter apps I discovered this autolink to Opera Mobile became broken and then I had no response at all to tapping hyperlinks. I hard reset my TP2 and have gone back to leaving Internet Explorer as the default browser for now because getting to these links automatically is more important to me at this time and I can always go to Opera Mobile and surf directly if I want to.

However, you can change and set Opera Mobile 9.5 as your default browser so that hyperlinks in emails and messages take you to Opera Mobile rather than Internet Explorer Mobile. This does not change the behavior on the TF3D main screen. Follow these few steps to make this happen:

1. Enter opera:config as the URL
2. Scroll down to Install and tap on it to open the submenus
3. Scroll down to Browser First Time Launch and tap the checkbox under the words to enable it.
4. Scroll down and tap on Save.
5. I had to exit Opera Mobile and then actually restart my Touch Pro2 for this change to take effect so keep that in mind if you don't see links opening up in Opera Mobile.

I have actually hidden the Internet Explorer TF3D tab and instead have Opera Mobile on the Programs tab so I can launch it from TF3D instead and keep IE Mobile hidden.

Increase number of tabs

For some reason this version of Opera Mobile only has 2 available tabs setup by default, which is quite lame. Follow these steps to increase that number for a better browsing experience:

1. Enter opera:config as the URL
2. Scroll down to User Prefs and tap on it to open the submenus
3. Scroll down to Maximum Allowed Tabs and change it to what you like. I changed mine to 6 since I highly doubt I would ever need more than that. I can always go back and change it later too.
4. Scroll down and tap on Save.

Like I said there are a TON of settings in here, including left hand UI, customizing colors, fonts, and font sizes, customizing sounds, customizing security settings and so much more.