Skyfire 1.5 Goes Beta on 5800, Does More than Mere Browsing

Yeah, Skyfire-the only other mobile browser (other than symbian and microB), capable of rendering flash content on mobile devices is now available for symbian fifth edition device, still in 1.5beta though. We have been waiting to get our hands on this browser from our 5800s since long and the dawn of 2010 has finally bought this amazing browser to our dear Tube 5800s.

So, what’s the thing with this Skyfire which made this browser win the “People’s Voice Best Mobile Application” in the 2009 Webby Awards? Well, we have already spilled the beans on this one-flash support and couple that with “blazing fast” browsing speeds and you have one gem of a browser for your mobile phones. Ok, so if it’s that good how does it fare on our 5800s? Hit the read button to find out.

Screenshots-

Now, that’s like the best browsing experience we have had so far on our 5800s. Apart from the browsing, it’s the integration of Twitter, Facebook and Gmail updates is what makes us drool over this mobile browser! If that is not appealing enough for you, how about tweeting/facebooking the link to the page you just found on the web from your skyfire browser sound like? Supercool right?

Ok, enough of this cool stuff, let’s cover some of the more basic stuff, you would expect to see in a browser:

1. Speed: Blazing fast is what Skyfire claims but we didn’t see any noticeable difference between symbian browser and skyfire. But still, it’s fast by mobile browser standards
2. Flash: Like we already told you, this is the only other browser (other being the symbian browser) on this platform to handle flash content. While YouTube performance was patchy at its best (out of sync audio/video at times), we are expecting these bugs to be ironed out, when the browser graduates from beta to the final 1.5 version
3. Navigation: Kinetic scrolling seems to be like the in-thing on 5800s these days. After the firmware update bought this most sought-after feature to our 5800s, Skyfire has now packed in this feature in their browser as well. Other than that, double tap zooming, fullscreen browsing and auto-rotate all work in confluence to enhance the browsing experience from the award winning browser

If the above features, seem too good to be true, take a look at this demo video by Skyfire team:

What we like?

1. Homescreen integration of Twitter, Facebook and Gmail feeds
2. Flash support
3. Speed of browsing

What we don’t like?

1. Video streaming not as fluid as one would expect it to be
2. Absence of “View in Fullscreen” mode for YouTube

Verdict

Skyfire is easily the best mobile browser that one can find on mobile platform today and that includes the Safari too. Not only does Skyfire render flash content on to your mobile browsers, but their home-screen integration of popular networking services, makes you do-away with some of the social networking apps. YouTube (and other video streaming) performance has not reached satisfactorily levels yet, but it looks good for a beta version. Even with patchy streaming performance, we wouldn’t hesitate to give this app the title of Best Mobile Browser on 5800 and it beats Opera Mobile by a mile in most departments, except may be the onscreen keyboard and download manager of Opera Mobile.

Download Skyfire 1.5beta for free (for mobile browsers)

Download Skyfire 1.5beta for free (for desktop browsers)