Samsung feature phones come pre-installed with Opera Mini.

Samsung has been giving stiff competition to feature, low to mid-budget phone makers in India. In yet another step, the company announced that they have preloaded their feature phones with Opera Mini Mobile browser. India still has a large number of users with feature phones and with this move, Samsung ensures swift browsing, even without a smartphone.

To deliver a fast and cost saving browser, Samsung has pre-installed Opera Mini on Star3, Star 3 Duos, Champ Deluxe and Champ Deluxe Duos. The company launched upgrades to its Star models, early this year. Both these devices come with similar spec sheets. Duos, however, comes with dual SIM functionality. The Champ Deluxe Duos is the most recent handset from the company launched at the start of this month. It carries an affordable price tag of under Rs.5,000 and a decent spec sheet to go along with.

Further, one can expect more Samsung models pre-loaded with Opera Mini, to come later this year. Opera Mini has been built for speed and it compresses webpages before sending them to a phone. It is said to consume 90 percent less data and load pages up to 10 times faster. Its essential features like tabs, password manager, Opera Link and Speed Dial further add to the convenience.

“These days, the difference between feature phones and smartphones has decreased. No matter the hardware specification or the user experience, feature phones are matching what the smartphone can offer,” said Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software. “Samsung bridges the gap between smartphones and feature phones by choosing to preinstall Opera Mini on its new feature phones so that people can enjoy a fast and affordable web.”

Opera Mini has become quite popular over the years and boasts of having over 160 million unique users, each month. In January, its users generated more than 1,832 million MB of data for its operators across the globe.