Following the cue from ARS I’ve decided to take my own look at the Dolphin HD brwoser for Android. I’ve used several mobile browsers on Android but I always fall back to the original browser due to integration, look, and feel. The other tested have included Firefox Mobile, Opera Mini, and Dolphin HD just to name a few. However according to ARS it’s worth another look. So what the hell, let take a peek again.

So what exactly so I look for in a modern mobile browser? Well the same things that anyone else would I would imagine. It has to be fast, fully integrated into Android, good performance, and most supply me with the right mix of options and flare to make my experience enjoyable. The main fault with browsers I have used in the past are issues with one of those things but most fall under poor performance or they just aren’t user friendly.

Both Firefox and Opera Mobile broswers have a ‘jerky’ motion when scrolling the screen, and constantly have to load new content as the page is scrolled. There is also, for lack of a better explaination, lag when it comes to changing websites or going to a new page on the site you are on, something highly irritating. There is also several issues with the other when it comes to using flash on certain websites and integration into the apps you have on your phone for email, twitter, facebook, and youtube. I use all of those things and when I click a youtube link in the browser etc I like it to open in the youtube app, where I have my “control room” for my youtube account. Same with the other social or media sites. Then comes the things like streaming media, especially video, I like it to open in the Android player instead of downloading to my phone, this was an issue with Firefox.

One thing I would like to point out I gave Opera and Firefox a try when they were both still in beta or their early stages anyways so things may have changed and I may take a second look at them, however I’m no interested at the moment with the issues I had before. I’m extremely picky and once I try two or three different versions of your software if it doesn’t work I don’t come back shy of something amazing happening. Maybe that has happened, so those looks will probably come later on.

So performance is the major issue when it comes to finding a better solution to Android’s native clients. Least that’s the way it seems in the browser arena. Unlike both Firefox and Opera Mobile Dolphin HD Android’s built in HTML rendering engine rather than introducing its own renderer, which means there is less overhead to this browser. Something the others have missed. Dolphin HD, essentially, just offers you a nicer tab based interface, flexible add-on system, extensive reconfigurability, and gesture support. So in essence I like to think of this as what the desktop version of Chrome should look like a perform if put into the mobile space, and I’m a diehard Chrome user! (Go Google! Yes I’m a Fan.)

So lets take a look at what Dolphin HD 5.0 brings to the table.

Dolphin HD Opening Screen and Edit Options

Once you first open Dolphin this is what you are presented with, much like the Chrome solution of not opening to a page which is incredibly handy considering on your mobile, or your desktop for that matter, you normally go to your favorite pages first before browsing around. The cool this is if you long press on the ‘Speed Dial’ entries on that page you are presented with a nice edit or delete option. With edit you can change the name of the shortcut or the page url, which is pulled from your recent visits to different pages. If you delete it it will leave you with an empty box like show above with a “+” in it so that you can add one from scratch. What you see above is the default entries.

Tabbed Interface, so nice

Here is a look when you visit a webpage, as said above the rendering engine is using Android’s HTML renderer so all function from your default browser is there including pinch to zoom etc. What you will notice is the green down arrows which represent flash objects. The cool thing is, unlike Android’s browser, is Dolphin will not load those flash applets unless you click on them with a single tap which saves both load times and battery life since it isn’t having to download and render them.

As you can see in the right hand image you can click the ‘+’ tab on the upper right hand side and it opens another tab, ala Chrome desktop, and I have opened this site in it. Nice, quick, and intuitive this is how a browser should work. If you have more than two tabs open the top bar becomes scrollable left to right, meaning you can open more and it doesn’t shrink the tabs to where you can tell what is in which tab.

So what if you want quick access to your bookmark or anything else? Well unfortunately in most browsers you have to use the menu key on your phone which will open a new page with your bookmarks and deal with it that way. Well lets look at how Dolphin handles it.

Just scroll the page left or right to see these

With a simple flick or your finger to the left you will be presented with the favorites menu and a ‘quick access’ menu. The quick access allows you to quickly add the current page you are on to your favorites, or if you have a lot of favorites to search for the one you are looking for. The uparrow you see on the upper right of the menu allow you to step up a level to your bookmarks folders, your history, and most visited lists allowing you full access to everything you would need to go back to that page you wanted to remember! The quick access button allows you, well, quick access to settings like bookmarks, history, settings, add-ons, themes, and gestures. I’ll speak more on gestures in a bit.

This is more powerful and useful than you know

If you flick your finger to the right of the webpage opens quick access to any addons and themes etc you have added to your browser. As pictured above, the left is the addon’s button screen via the ‘puzzle piece icon’ and the one of the right is the tabed menu access via the icon on the bottom.

Gestures are really cool

Ah gestures as mentioned above you can flick your browser screen to the left to gain access to the ‘quick access’ button. Inside that button is the gestures menu which you see above on the left. This list all current motions you can draw on the screen and the resulting action that happens when you do them. You can delete them, reassign them, or even create new ones that will make the gestures most useful to you, and make the able to be remembered by you.

At the bottom of the gesture menu you will see the option to setup the Gesture Button location. In the example here it’s setup for the bottom left. The action sets what you can see on the right hand picture. Gestures aren’t active until you tap that image. When scrolling etc, the buttons fades to make the page more readable and also allows you to physically touch the screen without an accidental gesture being issued. This is a very popular option in iOS for the iPhone and various ROMs for the Android devices, ie Cyanogenmod and most AOSP ROMs have gesture built into the actual Android OS.

Dolphin HD is definitely the way to go for a browser on Android, it seems just as fast as the Android browser which is no slouch, no performance issues, and bevy of additional features that simply make this browser the best Android has to offer at this time, in my opinion. It was made available last week from the Android Market. The HD flavor, there is a mini version for older Android Devices with 1.6 and below, which is intended for most modern handsets available with Android handsets and tablets.

If you are an existing Dolphin User and this hasn’t answered what has changed from the older version check out ARS Technica’s article from Ryan Paul where he talks about what exactly has changed.

For those of you too lazy, even though the Market has an Install button that will do the same once you visit it, here is the QR code.