If you're a fan of Opera Mobile and like trying out beta software, you'll be happy to know the Opera Mobile 9.5 beta is just two weeks away. The software represents a considerable rewrite of Opera Mobile, this time being largely based on the existing Opera platform on PCs. That led to a considerably longer development time than normal, but supposedly will result in a much more feature-rich browser for PDAs.

You can argue the merits of having "feature-rich" browsers on a mobile device, but increasingly a PDA or ultra-mobile computer is becoming ideal for Internet access, and sometimes a barebones browser doesn't cut it. The new beta is supposed to be released by the 15th of this month. It was just a few weeks ago when Opera 9.5 for the desktop was released. One neat feature they are pitching is profile synchronization between mobiles and desktops, along with speed enhancements.