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Alternative Web Browsers for the Treo 600 and Treo 650
Blazer is ok, but what else is on offer?
Xiino
Xiino is a less pretty but more capable browser than Blazer.
Good Points
Xiino is faster than Blazer because it shrinks the page in a different way. It is also possible to turn off pictures completely - i.e. you don't get that funny square thing that you do with Blazer, instead you get the text which the webpage editor has entered as the description for the picture. If that's too minimalistic for you but you still want to save data there is also an option to only get pictures as grayscale (called Preview in the prefs menu).
There is no "form bug", if you've tried typing text into Blazer on the mobile forum here for example you sometimes find that between you typing and submitting your text most of it goes missing. Xiino doesn't suffer from this, although you probably shouldn't use it to edit very long documents.
It caches the pages a =lot= better than Blazer: going backwards and forwards, and into your history is virtually instant. Also if you are halfway through typing a reply to someone you can exit Xiino, go and look up whatever you want in another application, and come back to Xiino and the page is exactly how you left it. You can also store a cached version of the page on your SD Card.
Bad Points
Navigation is slightly clumsy in comparison to Blazer, as there is no dedicated Back button, and you can't switch to the control bar at the bottom with one keypress. There is an option to switch to the control bar with a long press of the 5-way centre button, and this can be made easier by installing the Freeware TreoNavSet which allows you to adjust the time for the switch takes to occur.
You can't dial phone numbers straight from the browser.
It doesn't always render the page as well as Blazer does. This is not too bad as it seldom occurs, but you may find websites that are unviewable in Xiino when they are OK in Blazer, especially when frames are involved. Sometimes Xiino splits the frames off from one another, and you can navigate between them by tapping a small icon that appears in the top right of the screen, but at other times you are confined to one frame.
It doesn't always render the page as well as Blazer does. This is not too bad as it seldom occurs, but you may find websites that are unviewable in Xiino when they are OK in Blazer, especially when frames are involved. Sometimes Xiino splits the frames off from one another, and you can navigate between them by tapping a small icon that appears in the top right of the screen, but at other times you are confined to one frame.
Sometimes extra characters (e.g. apostrophes, quote marks etc.) aren't rendered correctly but appear as a jumble of code.
Neutral Points
Navigating to different bookmarks is a longer process than with Blazer, but the method of filing them and the fact you can have unlimited numbers makes up for that. I get round this anyway by launching most of my bookmarks from the superb Initiate.
Summary
Overall Xiino is so much faster and more capable than Blazer that it is certainly worth trialling it for 30 days. The caching behaviour alone makes it worthwhile taking a look.
Web Pro
Description, download links, screenshot, good points, drawbacks?
You get the idea....
Web Browsers
The Treo 650 has a built-in web browser, the most recent version of a browser called Blazer (although it appears in the launcher of your Treo 650 simply as an app called "Web"). Blazer is good for some things (downloading software and visiting WAP sites, for instance) but it doesn't provide the best user experience.
For those dissatisfied with Blazer, there are a few other browsers available, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.
Blazer
Website: http://www.palmone.com/us/products/smartphones/treo650/blazer.epl∞
Pros:
- Free with your Treo 650
- Lives in ROM, so doesn't take up additional memory
- Accurate display of web pages
- Uses image placeholders
- Can load images individually or all at once; can save images
- Slow, slow, slow.
- Switching in/out of the app or using forward/back causes lengthy redrawing process
Xiino
Website: http://www.mobirus.com/eng/products/Xiino/index_html∞
Pros:
- Really fast
- Instant back/forward within cached pages
- 5-way support
- Gets images through a proxy server, so the files are smaller and download faster
- Ugly table formatting, plus some other formatting quirks
- Gets images through a proxy server, so if it's down, you're hosed
- No "save this image" command
WebViewer
Website: http://www.reqwireless.com/webviewer.html∞
Pros:
- Java-based, so the app itself is small
- Fast
- Java runtime takes up a lot of space
- No downloading. At all.
- Copy/paste is awkward
Opera Mini
Download it by going here∞ with your Treo. URL is http://mini.opera.com/my∞
Pros:
- Renders very fast and looks better than Blazer on some sites.
- It is free
- 5-way support
- Very fast to go back (uses cache)
- Requires Java to be installed (takes up lots of space if you don't already have it)
- Causes resets occasionally for some people
- Cannot download files
WebPro
Technically not even available for the Treo 650, WebPro rocks your pants. It's also horrible.
Further editing (like providing links to the software and actually explaining the pros and cons of each browser) is still needed on this page.
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