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XHTML browser - how useful?

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  • 15-05-2004 11:13pm
    #1
    8080
    Closed Accounts Posts: 40 ✭


    I'm deciding between a Nokia 3200 and Sagem MyV-65, both on ready-to-go, both €160. The Sagem wins hands down on the camera (640x480), screen (64k colours), memory (4mb), and I think it might have a modem.

    The 3200 has an XHTML browser and I was wondering what use that is? Would it allow me to surf non-wap sites?

    Thanks


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    #2
    QBall
    Closed Accounts Posts: 99 ✭✭QBall


    Originally posted by 8080
    The 3200 has an XHTML browser and I was wondering what use that is? Would it allow me to surf non-wap sites?

    Yes and no.

    Yes:
    It allows you view non-wap (non-WML) sites.

    No:
    Not many websites use XHTML, and those that do probably don't comply to the spec closely enough for the browser on the phone.

    XHTML is HTML re-done as an XML application. In practice there is not a huge difference between correct HTML and XHTML, but since most HTML in the wild is horribly mangled you may find that the phone can't view many non-WAP sites.

    I guess the reason that they have put in an XHTML browser is that they already had an XML parser for the WML browser. How useful a browser it is will depend on how good the error recovery in the parser is. If they've put a lot of effort in, then you'll be able to view a lot of plain XHTML/HTML sites (i.e. no Flash, Java, Javascript...) but odds are they haven't done much do to space constraints. Odds are, Boards won't work. :)

    You should also take into account that most web sites are created for screens capable of doing at least 800x600. Viewing them on the phone will be painful. In the past I've used my Nokia 7650 for some WAP stuff, but can't stand the tiny screen. Now I'm lucky to have a Palm Tungsten T3 which has a decent browser and a nice screen, so I don't bother.


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    #3
    thetourist
    Registered Users Posts: 469 ✭✭thetourist


    hi there
    i have no experience of either of the 2 phones you are considering so please forgive me. I use a S.E. p800 which has a HTML/XHTML browser and i find it fantastic - but as the last poster mentioned you shouldnt be depending on the xhtml part of things as not all sites comply, however i imagine that a lot of the important ones do. Also things like applets flash and DHTML etc may not display properly. You should check to see whether it works properly with HTML aswell as XHTML as i can testify that the browser on my phone is quite usefull. I use the Opera browser for symbian and if your phone allows you to install that ( again i have no idea whether the phone allows installtion of apps etc ) then it is very usefull as it reparses the pages which allows usefull viewing of most of the web content on a small screen. Best case scenario however you will find that viewing on a small screen gets tiring after a length of time. What a lot of people do now is use their phone to pick up the web via gprs and then beam it to a laptop via bluetooth which many phones are now eqipped with so you have a wireless internet connection. As far as i know this way works quite well after you get it up and running however i suggest that internet on a mobile is pretty much in early days so i wouldnt be expecting miracles - in saying that i get great use out of it myself - and email too.

    hope this helps
    bob:ninja:


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