To start I’d like to mention again that this was only released today. It is still in beta although is widely available to the public right now in the Android Market. This is a great start but in some ways it does feel a little like a beta product, but we have a feeling it will grow into much more and soon replace our stock browser for Android. First the bookmark icons don’t display much and the UI is extremely ugly. On the other hand you toss it on a tablet and it looks amazing.

So yes this is very much still a beta (and you see what I mean when it crashes in my video) but for a first try and initial release it’s pretty freaking awesome. I’ll start with the video below in which you’ll see the Galaxy Nexus and ASUS Transformer Prime giving Chrome for Android a try. I cover a few neat new features, the “cards” style tabbed browsing and more.

Chrome for Android Beta hands-on

First, lets talk about Sync. The fact that we can now seamlessly sync from device to device, and from computer to device is awesome. I’ve waited for something this simple for a long time and so far it works great, but I don’t see any settings to tweak this option. In the video you can see it shows the sync between the Prime and the Nexus — showing it was just synced 5 minutes ago. This is awesome and highly impressive. Not only does it show me what I was browsing on the other device, but it loads them in the background and I just tap “devices” and chose what I want. You can run out of the office and be right where you were in a few seconds flat.

Other browsers offer this and Honeycomb sort of had this where it backed up bookmarks, but this real-time live sync is convenient to say the least. I’ve not found a way to get it to manually sync but it seems to check every few minutes. Hopefully more options will be adding to that later.

Next I want to compare a little between the stock Android 4.0 ICS browser, and Chrome. Both are very similar, and are about the same in regards to look, feel, and speed although both have their advantages and disadvantages. Here is a side-by-side comparison.

For one, Chrome doesn’t support Flash as we mentioned earlier today, so that might be a concern for many users. HTML 5 support will continue to grow but in the meantime no flash here, so you’ll have to use something else on mobile if that matters to you.

We also ran a few Sunspider benchmark tests just to see how she performed and I was actually quite impressed. Between Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and Chrome we scored under 1,900. Most devices in the past struggle to get under 2,100. The screenshot below again shows Chrome for Android on the left, and stock ICS browser on the right (full size images in the gallery below).

Chrome scored 1880 while stock ICS was at 1912. So pretty dead even. Performance across the board seems to reflect a similar result with actual real-world usage too. Overall the stock Android browser has a better and more friendly UI in general, but the few tweaks to tabbed browsing and the “cards” effect in Chrome are awesome. If we could have a nice blend of these two I’d be in heaven. I have a feeling that is exactly where Google is headed — so it’s only a matter of time.

Now to wrap things up I want to mention the lack of “Quick Controls”. A feature in the labs section of the Android browser that I’m missing dearly. Obviously Chrome is its own browser and not integrated into Android, but we have a feeling it will be the main browser in the future. Same goes for the UI. While it has some extra polish, smooth animations, and a decent design it doesn’t resemble Ice Cream Sandwich other than the menu layout. Hopefully this will get blended together.

We have a few issues and shortcomings so far but the awesome features and overall polish make this my new default browser. Syncing everything from my PC over really has sealed the deal for me. Once they work out the bugs, make things a bit prettier, and enhance the overall experience nothing will come close and all those 3rd party browsers will be permanently replaced for me.

Get the Chrome for Android Beta in the link below, and check out the gallery for the rest of our images. Feel free to let us know what you think in the comments below. Do you like Chrome? Will it replace your stock browser on mobile?

Chrome for Android Link

Having a full-out browser built from the ground up for mobile has been the goal for Google and with Chrome for Android they plan to achieve just that. With awesome card view tabbed browsing, impressive multitouch in more places than you’d think, bookmark sync and more this browser really has some huge potential. This is Chrome, but for mobile devices and while it will look familiar with the Omni-bar it still has some fresh new UI tweaks and everything should feel natural. From tabbed management to syncing bookmarks and open pages. It’s all meant to be easy, and fast.

The user interface changes aren’t everything either. It’s also all about speed. The user experience and the feeling of a fast experience has all been improved. From pre-fetching pages, scrolling and zoom speeds, multitouch and more. It’s all much more fluid, simple, and last but not least — fast. Do take note that Adobe Flash is not supported.

Chrome for Android has introduced a new feature called “place shifting”. Users can migrate from their desktop, laptop or Chromebook over to their mobile phone or tablet and everything remains in place. The tabs you have open — including the current tab you were viewing can all be shifted to your mobile device. A seamless and easy user experience.

Obviously this is still in beta and was only released today but from our initial impressions it looks like an excellent start and will probably replace the stock ICS browser moving forward. Will later versions of Android come with Chrome instead? We think they will very soon. So far the bump in performance and the tabbed browser really has sealed the deal for me. Being able to drag the different tabs (cards) around and see a preview of each tab is awesome. You can even rearrange the tabs.

For now this is only for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich devices but we have a feeling more will see it soon — either officially or ported by developers. More details are available from the video and market link below.

Chrome for Android link

I’ve been watching Firefox for Android since about version 6 and while they are making huge improvements I still don’t see myself ever using it. The stock browser is excellent, not to mention the Android 4.0 ICS browser is awesome. I don’t even use a 3rd party browser these days. However, with Firefox 10 page scrolling and zoom seems to be steadily improved and is actually more fluid than stock — but that is about all I’m enjoying.

I swear I remember release plans and even release notes saying Flash would be here with FF10 but it still seems to be missing, although it was added to a beta last year. The latest update still requires a missing plug-in as shown below and we are stuck with ugly grey boxes instead of videos in Firefox. Everything isn’t all bad and they’ve added a few important changes. Anti-Aliasing for WebGL is now implemented and probably has a lot to do with that extremely smooth scrolling, not to mention accelerated layers in OpenGL ES and faster firefox-sync.

I did still have a random crash even though I only used FF for around 15 minutes this afternoon — so that was a bit disappointing. For fans or those that must have all the plug-ins and add-ons head to the Android Market via the link below and get it today. More details on the change-log can be found here.

Market Link

TeleNav’s new HTML 5 browser-based system will allow anyone to use their services. Developers will be able to add one simple line of code into their Android app or website to offer customers and users free turn-by-turn navigation, which will then be available to anyone who has a smartphone or tablet. This same feature will be available for websites. Simply add the code to your site and users can instantly get turn-by-turn navigation without leaving your site.

This is an enormous amount of added value for any mobile, location-based website or app focused on travel, shopping, local search, deals and more. With one line of code, you can give your customers one-click access to premium, voice-guided turn-by-turn directions to any location, including hotels, restaurants, merchants or deal locations. Customers never need to leave your app.”

This could potentially take navigation to a completely new level. No more need for an additional application to launch or download for directions, taking up device resources and battery life — everything will be in the browser and quickly closed with a single click. TeleNav has told us users will not be required to be a TeleNav customer and everything will be completely free (for the end user). This creates an awesome opportunity for developers to make directions and more extremely easy — adding value to their site or application.

TeleNav HTML 5 web-based navigation is currently being opened to developers for testing and will be available early next year. Developers can get started right here.

The data is the latest in long line of stories that illustrate Android’s continuing worldwide dominance. Android now has the most mobile app downloads of any operating system, and the Android Market has published over half a million separate apps (though only about 320,000 total apps are available at the moment). Android continues to lead the pack in hardware sales, especially in Asia, where more than 50% of smartphones sold run the Android operating system.

The mobile ad data is important to advertisers and app developers, both of whom have to decide where to devote their resources. It’s pretty good news for Google, too, since ad revenue is their primary source of return income after developing and giving away Android for license-free use by OEMs. Though Apple still rules when it comes to manufacturers, Samsung is nipping at its brushed aluminum heels, and HTC had the highest number of devices in the top 20 ad impressions list with six. Android runs on 15 of the top 20 devices for ad impressions.

The Webkit-based browser claims that website loading times can be 25% – 50% faster than its competitors and that they offer the fastest web page load times on any Android device. With features such as Social tags and always-on access to Facebook and more this browser is both fast, and social. With flash and HTML compression, tabbed browsing, URL auto-complete, a download manager, web history, cookies, option to save page images to view offline and more.

With tons of options outlined above you can also choose image and video quality for better load times. They even offer pinch-to-zoom and RSS support. The browser has a decent array of options and settings and they claim to have a modern user interface. Personally I feel the entire UI is very outdated and could use some serious polishing, just look at Dolphin.

We do have a customizable home screen with the popular “panel” interface for favorites and bookmarks, they didn’t seem to want to be re-arranged for me and I had to delete them all to get what was important at the top, it does come with popular sites pre-loaded like GetJar for Android Apps, ESPN GO, Facebook and a few others so that was a nice touch although nothing we haven’t seen before. So far personally the experience has been a bit “meh” for me.

Next up I want to mention speed. They tout this as the fastest browser for Android with the quickest load times, and I either am crazy or they are still working to improve things because I experienced no such speeds. Android Community.com took well over 15 seconds to load, every time, and others took slightly less but depends on flash heavy content of course. Nothing seemed extremely snappy or fluid for me and I’d much rather just use the standard browser — or better yet, Dolphin. With compressed pages and flash the amount of data being used by BOLT will be much lower than other browsers so this is one area where data conscious users will benefit. Obviously BOLT Browser is still in its beta stages and has just been released out of private beta today so we should expect a few bugs or issues to still need working out. For now, personally, I’ll wait until they improve things a bit more.

Give BOLT Browser a try and let us know what your results are like in the comment section below. You can get it from the market right now by clicking here.

[via BOLT Browser]

The Silk browser consists of two things they are calling Amazon Split that basically makes it a two part browser. The image above is a good demonstration of how Split will be using Amazon’s EC2 super computer cluster loads, and then processing intense webpage images and code on Amazon cloud servers. This will free both the browser and the Kindle Fire’s resources to continue working on much simpler tasks, as well as seriously improve battery life.

Amazon Silk Demo

As you can see from the image and video above, Amazon’s servers will do the majority of the work and then pass the crunched and accelerated web page down to the end user. This is a similar approach as the Opera Mini or Opera Mobile has been doing, but I have a feeling Amazon’s implementation will be much better, not to mention they have a huge database of servers and cloud storage.

The Amazon Silk browser will also store cache and frequently visited sites right on the cloud and the EC2 servers. This means you’ll have virtually unlimited cache as well as be able to quickly load frequently visited sites like Android Community in the blink of an eye. Soon you’ll be able to get as much Android news from Android Community as quickly as possible thanks to Amazon’s Kindle Fire, and Silk browser.

We’ll be sure to get our hands-on coverage video of the Silk browser up as soon as possible so stay tuned. For all the new information regarding Amazon feel free to check out our portal for the Kindle Fire.

Bonus Video: Kindle Fire Commercial

Firefox for tablets is an evolution of its phone based predecessor, with some added UI enhancements and changes that will take full advantage of the larger screens added real estate. With awesome tabbed browsing features that work great in both portrait, or landscape mode this will truly be a great browser for mobile devices. Themed nicely along with Android 3.0 Honeycomb it has the same drop down menu’s up top for easy access to configure settings and change themes.

Shown in the photo above in portrait mode multiple tabs no longer take up that precious space on the top of the browser, instead the tabs are singled into one group and accessed via a drop down menu. When in landscape mode they are nicely available on the left side and you can even scroll through multiple tabs. I’m really liking what I’ve seen thus far but sadly we have no official release date or beta at the moment. This is more of a tease for now. Adding features from both the mobile version and the web based experience into one truly optimized for tablets browser this should be exciting when we get more details.

Mozilla also kept the “awesome bar” for quick access to everything. Mozilla is only showcasing the new browser today we don’t have a beta for you to download at the moment but will be sure to report back and get some hands-on time as soon as possible. More details below.

[via Mozilla Blog]

One change I really like is the “Awesome Screen” that basically instantly brings you to a page of everything you browse most often, like a shortcut to your bookmarks only better. They’ve also added a new look, I love the Gingerbread theme they provide for users on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Mozilla also mentions plenty of “under the hood” changes but that is expected with a large update like this.

Firefox for Android offers tons of options and add-ons and developers should have some exciting new API’s to try out with the latest Firefox v6.0 released today. For all the details for users and developers alike be sure to check out Firefox 6.0 release notes to see what’s new and exciting from Mozilla. It is available now in the Android Market so head on over via the source link below.

[via Android Market]

Things have been progressing well over at Mozilla, just this March they were announcing Firefox 4 for mobile. They’ve already released 5 and now Firefox 6 is in beta stages. They plan to continue to update until it is the most feature complete browser and as close to a desktop experience as possible.

As far as the web experience, here is a list of a few new features:

Higher-quality image scaling (on devices with NEON-compatible processors). Smoother zooming, less pixelation, crisper display of logos, etc.
Improvements for large-screen tablets: Optimizing Firefox for larger tablet devices, e.g. by adjusting UI elements, buttons, font size. (Phase 1)
Better integration of Form Assistant for a smoother user experience
Visual refresh with new Gingerbread theme for phones running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread): A fresh look for the browser to look even more beautiful on Gingerbread.
Universal Access: Optimized rendering of pages that use RTL layout (languages like Arabic, Hebrew) (see bug 634386)

They now have over 160 add-ons for the mobile browser and the list is quickly growing. I’ve not used Firefox for mobile since the release of 4 but it appears I need to give it a try, with all these recent changes things sure sound stable and smooth. While you are here I was wondering what browser you readers use for mobile? Please leave a few replies in the comments below.

[via Android Market]

To get started is simple, just go to docs.google.com right in the browser of your device. Press sort to organize the list of docs visible in the mobile browser, or press narrow by to specify the list of docs you’d like to see, just like the picture above shows.

These features have already been implemented and are live right now so you can start sharing right away. Sharing is a core feature that I’ve been waiting to see come to the mobile front and now it is here I must admit it works great and sure is convenient. If you have any suggestions or issues you can head to the support forums.

[via Google Blog]

Dolphin is to Android what Firefox and Chrome are to PC and Mac, a very versatile and feature complete browser. They have add-on support, bookmark folders, bookmark to sd backup/restore, tabbed browsing and more. Gestures can control the browser for all us touchscreen users. You can even restore a tab you’ve accidentally closed. They have added support for more themes, over 16 languages and more in this latest update to make Dolphin even more powerful. One of my favorite new features is the ability to copy all your bookmarks from the stock browser so the transition will be fast and easy for those that didn’t want to redo their bookmark collection.

They have updated the user interface with something they are calling the “Fire UI” and it sure looks nice, and clean. Personally I can’t help but feel like I’m using a blend of Google Chrome and the Android 3.0 Honeycomb browser, both of those are good things so I’d say that is a plus. It feels very comfortable and like something I am used to, the tabbed browsing on top with my Motorola Xoom was simple and smooth.

Pulling up your bookmarks is extremely easy with no tapping or hitting menu, simply swipe to the right and the bookmarks menu will appear (much better and smoother than Firefox Mobile’s implementation might I add). See the screenshot below.

Last but not least you have full-screen mode for those that want to use all of that screen real estate. On phones I use the full-screen feature, but on something like my Motorola Xoom or a tablet I feel that there is plenty of space to keep the bar up top for convenience.

I’m going to be enjoying Dolphin HD over the next few days and will report back anything I find or issues if I have any. For now feel free to get the latest and greatest ad-free Dolphin HD v5.0 in the Android Market by clicking here.

For those that don’t know, Opera offers two versions of it’s popular browser. Opera Mini and Opera Mobile, both have been updated today in the market. Opera Mini is more for devices on slow data networks, or those with limited data usage available. I used it on my G1. The Mini version compressed webpages on Opera’s servers and sends it to the user, saving about 10 times the data usage, as well as speeds up browsing load times substantially. For stronger and more powerful devices, or users on Wifi I’d highly recommend the Opera Mobile version as it is a full out browser.

Opera Mini was updated to version 6.0 and it brought things like Pinch to Zoom, improved panning and zooming, a optimized UI for tablets and more. Sadly mini does not have or use Adobe Flash. The Mobile version however does have flash. Opera Mobile has been updated to version 11 and it has all the updates the mini version got and more like support for Flash 10.2, tablet UI improvements, Pinch to Zoom is very smooth now, with hardware acceleration being a big update as well. I’ve loaded Opera Mobile up on my Motorola Xoom and took a few screenshots of how well it works. Showing tabbed browsing, settings, flash settings, tile view and more. Check them out after the video below.

The start screen is very simple and outlines a few options and features of Opera Mobile

Then it starts and goes to the tiles screen with all your bookmarks conveniently ready to touch and go.

Immediately I removed Facebook, and replaced them with the best sites ever, AndroidCommunity and SlashGear (you all should too). Can’t forget Google or the market though.

The tabbed browsing really impressed me on the Xoom, it was animated and extremely fast. When touching one tab it slides around and on top of the other page. Very neat and nicely done Opera.

Next we have the bookmarks, downloads, help and settings tab in the top left corner. Everything is super easy to access and simple. No one should be confused while using this browser. They have added some great features such as Opera Turbo witch will make even the Mobile version compress pages to speed things up when wifi signal is weak or are using a pay per data plan. This can be toggled on/off as well as other settings all in the settings menu.

here is just a picture to show you that not only is Flash and hardware acceleration present, but seems to work great and has options of it’s own. You can choose to have Flash 10.2 fully working and on every single site you open, you can choose the Click-to-Play feature (On Demand) where flash content will only load when you want it to, I use that setting myself. Last you can completely disable flash if you feel the need.

Lastly I have a small clip of the Motorola Xoom running Opera Mobile v11 for those that want to see it in live action.

While there is way to many different variables to actually get a solid test that is actually accurate, many sites, and firms try. Apparently this group Blaze wasn’t actually using the phones and browsers themselves, but rather a browser wrapper program they built that ran the tests on something else. Blaze also used the same wifi connection for all the tests. Obviously there is lots that would come into play. The different phone models on both sides, specs, even the network congestion if not using wifi. The biggest issue is Blaze not using the devices themselves.

Our sister site Slashgear reached out to the Blaze CTO Guy Podjarny to have him re-run a few tests and just to confirm some of the reports and they mention that and its results here. After all the drama and people not sure about the results the Blaze CTO pointed out to CNET some of the critical flaws, mainly that the tests were done using UIWebView instead of Safari. The Safari application has benefited from increased software improvements where as UIWebView is a simple browser that can be embedded into apps and has not benefited from the latest software enhancements. This alone makes the tests seem uneven and not very fair. Apple has since came out and debunked the testing and mentions exactly what we described above. I wonder if he also was lacking some of the performance enhancing features on the Android site as well.

Either way I’m sure Apple, and Android both are doing everything they can to allow us users to have the best, and fastest possible browsing experience possible. I know from personal use that Android 2.2 and 2.3 made big leaps in all aspects of the android browser, and 3.0 Honeycomb on my Xoom is even better. It’s the best mobile browsing experience I’ve had yet. So for now, just like the picture above says, this story is debunked. Don’t worry my Android friends, we all know our phones are faster!

[via SlashGear]

These huge improvements are making Firefox a great alternative browser for Android. Firefox 4 Beta is faster and easier to use. You’ll experience better responsiveness to panning and zooming, faster start up time and with enhanced JavaScript performance you’ll see faster page load times. They also mention working overtime to make major stability improvements in this release. As always with Firefox, they have Firefox-sync to PC, tabbed browsing, & add-ons to make for a more personalized and efficient browsing experience. If you have yet to try Firefox 4 on Android, I recommend giving it a try. You can download it in the Android Market, or over the air right to your device at market.android.com

[via Mozilla Firefox]

One of the changes in this update is the ability to move the application to your SD card to save phone memory. With this version of Skyfire you can also upload files directly from your browser, however, these two features are only available if you’re running Android 2.2 or 2.3.

Downloads will now happen in the background and, when finished, a notification will pop up in the system tray similar to how Market downloads are downloaded.

The update is available now in the Android Market.

[Via PhoneArena]

Matt Brubeck, a engineer at Mozilla, stated that an upcoming beta release of the web browser should be arriving in the Market by the end of this month.

The journey up until this point has been a long one for the browser formally known as “Fennec,” but its entrance into the Android Market means it will become a mainstream competitor for the other Android browsers out there.

[Via DroidLife]

To edit your documents, just navigate to docs.google.com from your browser and choose the document you’d like to edit. Hit edit and you will enter the mobile editor.

While the spreadsheet editor has been around for sometime, this is the first time users have been able to edit their text documents from any mobile device.

Along with its release in the Android browser, it’s also available on the iPhone and iPad.

[Via Google]

There’s also tabbed browsing, a password manager, bookmarks and Speed Dial, and you can now set the Opera Mini browser to be the default (unlike the previous beta).  The company has tweaked page layouts to suit the new breed of big-screen Android devices, too.

[youtube AJTaKch7OIU]

Press Release:

Lightning fast browsing on Android phones
Opera Mini 5.1 for Android released

Oslo, Norway – July 14, 2010 – Opera spreads the love to Android mobile phone users. Opera Mini 5.1 is now available for phones built on the Android platform, offering better browsing performance and improved user experience.

With over 61 million users worldwide, Opera Mini is the world’s most popular browser for mobile phones, allowing much faster browsing speeds, while keeping the costs to a minimum. Browse at lightning speed today by downloading the free Opera Mini browser from the Android Market or at m.opera.com.

Opera Mini is a favorite not just on feature phones, but also on smartphones, scoring an impressive 1 million downloads on the iPhone during the first 24 hours of availability. Opera Mini is highly optimized for almost any handset, delivering the best Internet experience on more than 3000 mobile phone models.

Opera Mini raises the game on Android phones. Since its Opera Mini 5 beta release, Opera Mini can now be set as the default browser for more convenient Internet access. Opera Mini 5.1 also offers improved page layout on high-end Android handsets with large screens.

What we say

“Opera Mini 5.1 for the Android platform is the next step in bringing the world’s most popular mobile web browser to all major platforms, offering improved performance and great web experience to almost any handset,” says Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software. “Opera Mini is used by over 61 million people on more than 3000 handset models and with today’s release Opera continues its mission to provide the best web experience on any device and on any platform.”

About Opera Mini

Opera Mini brings the Web to almost any handset by compressing data by up to 90 percent before sending content to the phone. This results in significantly improved page loading speed and reduced data costs for the user. For example, with webpages such as BBC.com, a normal mobile web browser will display a BBC News page roughly 1 time, as compared to 9 times with Opera Mini for the same cost.

In addition to providing speed and cost savings, Opera Mini 5.1 comes with useful features, such as tabbed browsing, password manager, bookmarks and Speed Dial, built into the browser to deliver easy web access while on-the-go. With Opera Mini optimized for Android phones, more people are able to get a PC-like browsing experience on their handsets.

Download

Download Opera Mini directly to your Android phone for free from the Android Market, or at m.opera.com. For more information, visit http://www.opera.com/mobile/.

The Droid X has dual-band 1xEVDO handset headed for Verizon, nothing new here. It will have a 4.3-inch screen with a 480×854 resolution display. From the looks of the sheet, it will have a QWERTY keyboard. If it does have a hard keyboard, that’s really impressive from a device that is only 0.39-inches thick.

It’s also 2.5-inches wide and 5.01-inches tall and only weighs 5.47 ounces. For some reason it has the Safari Browser version 4 preinstalled. If this isn’t an entry mixed up, this will be the first and only Android device with Apple’s mobile browser installed.