Opera On Wii
Well, the Opera browser for Wii finally came out last Friday. I've spent some time with it since then and, while I really enjoy it for watching YouTube videos and playing Flash games, there are definitely some things that could be improved. I'll cut Opera some slack, though, since this is just a 'trial' version and they admit that this installment is limited in features. In any case, here are my personal pros and cons:
The Pros:
- Great for viewing Flash videos. And since YouTube converts all their videos to Flash 7 format, you'll be spending a lot of time there. Perfect for when you have people over and everyone can't fit around your laptop screen.
- Great for playing some Flash games. There are web sites now, like www.wiicade.com, that round up some of the best Wii-friendly Flash games on the net (i.e. games that primarily use pointing and clicking).
- Easy to disable CSS, thus making sites easier to read on your low-resolution TV. Sites that have a good conformance to modern web standards adapt nicely.
- Nice method of zooming in on areas of a web page, although zoom levels could be improved.
- Surfing from your couch with only your remote. A lazy internet surfer's dream.
The Cons:
- No way to view your history. There is a back button, but that's all you get.
- No way to view the address bar, so you never really know where you're at.
- No playback of Quicktime, Windows Media, or MP3 (among other file formats). It'd be nice if we lived in a world where everyone stuck their digital media in a nice Flash wrapper, but that's currently not the case. Which brings me to...
- No Flash 8. Okay, at least they use Flash 7. They claim that it has something to do with Adobe's refusal to release Flash 8 for systems that they don't support or blah blah. At least most sites are still using Flash 7 or lower.
- Difficulty in typing long blocks of text with the Wii keyboard. Try leaving a comment on a web site. I dare you.
- Several sites crash the browser, like gmail.com and pandora.com. I hope it's just something those particular sites can fix, because I'm dying to have internet radio in my living room courtesy of pandora.com.
Anyway, all negatives aside, I still have a lot of fun with it. Okay, 95% of that time is spent on YouTube, but I still think it'd be worth the $5 when the final version is released.
Hope everyone had a great holiday season. We spent Christmas on the beach at St. George Island. Very relaxing.