Market is not on my Cherrypal as an app; I must go the Android.com - Market to get it. But on a computer, Market doesn't have a 'search' feature. All that is shown are "Featured", "Top Free", and "Top Paid" - not all apps are shown. No way to see all the apps or search them. And the "market ..." link still doesn't work.
OK, try getting the marketplace from my other site - Android APK - let me know if that works. If it doesn't, as I'm not sure what version of 'droid you need to be running in order for it to work properly, I'll try to find an Opera APK download for you and post that instead.
Went to Android APK - used the Desktop version - no available "Opera" search items. Downloaded vending.apk, but when trying to install it, got a message saying "Application not installed - Market could not be installed on this phone."
Of course, my MID isn't a phone [!!!]. So if you have a way to find an Opera APK, I'd sure appreciate it.
Truth to tell, this is hardly a deal-killer for the Cherrypal. The installed browser runs well, and it's quick. Opera Mini was recommended for its additional features. But those may come at a price of degraded performance.
The device performs as advertised - it'a a very inexpensive MID, that does well for suring the web and doing e-mail. It may well be that if you want more, you need to pay more: get a higher-priced netbook, or get an inexpensive true laptop at Fry's.
As Alice would say, "This gets peculiarer and peculiarer."
Clicking on the "download" link in the suggested androidzoom site, this message is displayed:
"You do not have permission to open this page:
market://search?q=pname%3Acom.opera.mini.android"
Also, when I tried to install xScope lite, I was again told that I couldn't install that app on my "phone". So it sounds like there may be some other element that defines my MID as a "non-phone". There may be a setting, but Android is sufficiently different than XP, Vista, or Linux Mint [other OSs I use] that I haven't figured out my way around that yet.
Your post on "Android Tablets Blog" about Google Docs appears to imply that no Android browser would allow editing of Google Docs; correct? That's one of the functionalities that I hoped to obtain with Opera, but maybe that's not possible.
The post you're talking about refers to doc and docx files, I believe. It allows you to view them with a single click, but not edit them with a single click. This is only in relation to Microsoft Office-based files.
I think that android thinks it's on a phone, regardless of what device it's on, unless heavily modified by the specific vendor - but I'm not 100% certain on that one.
Good find! Just out of curiosity, since that is the 5.0beta link, does anyone know what 5.1 is for, listed on Opera's site? Is it just a generic java build?
While I haven't worked with it extensively, Opera Mini 5 may be a tad better than the browser included with the Asia, but it's not overwhelmingly better. Both seem OK for basic net surfing - mail, web. Apparently neither can do things like YouTube -- leastwise I haven't figured out how -- I think Flash is needed, and it isn't available except for Android 2.2, I have read. Asia uses 1.7.
So the Asia does well as advertised - plain vanilla surfing. And it weighs 2 pounds. You want more - you gotta pay more. And you can get a full-featured laptop at Fry's for the same or less than a netbook.
I also downloaded Opera Mini for my Cherrypal Asia (my Asia is the 10" model). It installed okay and seems to be better than the browser that came with the unit (which I guess is the standard Android browser). It had big icons at the bottom and seemed to perform faster. I had looked for alternate browsers, and some required Android 2.1 or 2.2. Opera Mini didn't require that, which was very cool of the Opera people, because I would have no idea at all how to upgrade the Android 1.7 on this Cherrypal unit. At the time my semi-Chinese version of Market app was working and I suppose it still is, however I ended up looking for APK files. These are files that any Android user can download and make use of, without using the Market app, at least if he or she has a recent enough Android version, and if nothing else is wrong.
Opera Mini browser for Android MID
