Saturday, May 5, 2012

Browser Review: Dolphin Browser HD

In my post about the standard browser for the Galaxy S2, I mentioned that I didn't find much fault with it for browsing the internet every now and again, but if you use your phone to browse more often, then it might be worth your while to look at something a bit different.

I found Dolphin, which I find very nice to use and powerful indeed, plus it includes some nice features, like the gesture system and voice recognition.

Here are a few screen shots of it in action:




The one nice feature I like about Dolphin above the standard browser is that when you zoom in by double tapping (you can pinch-zoom also), is that it zooms in close enough for you to actually be able to read the text, but it also re-positions the text so that it fits in, so you only have to scroll down and not sideways.

The website in the above screen shots doesn't have a mobile version, and as you can see, it displays it pretty much exactly the same as on a PC (see that website here).

This works even better when you hold the phone horizontally:


The slider on this specific website works with jQuery, and that works exactly like it should on the mobile browser :)

The Dolphin browser does also play nicely with Flash content, so that should be an issue ;)

Another nice feature I like is the options it gives you when you close it:


Handy if you don't have that much free space on your phone (like me with all the games and stuff I've installed).

It has too many different settings to even mention, the best advice regarding that I can give you is to actually download it (it's free after all) and check them all out.

Some of the features it also has is smart gestures (where you draw a shape on the screen to do stuff, like open a new tab for example), but in my books that's just a gimmick and I personally won't be using that. The same can be said for the voice recognition, but it allows you to say, for example "ebay silver teaspoons", then it'll open up Ebay and search for Silver Teaspoons.

Then last but not least:


Yes... it has TABS (one thing amiss in the regular browser) - so it actually looks like a normal PC browser, which is cool ;)

Anyway, the Dolphin browser is an awesome alternative in my opinion to the regular browser that comes standard with the phone.

Get it here.

Till next time!