What Is The Cell Phone Browser Feature?

The war over Internet browsers is alive and well, and is now being fought on a new scale and a new battlefront. That front is, believe it or not, a cell phone browser.

Cellular phone browsers are emerging as a serious market for many internet companies already serving browsers for traditional desktop and laptop computers. With the integration of wireless and handset cell phone markets, however, there is now a market emerging for so-called “mini-browsers” that can operate properly on the tiny screens used by cellular phones and other pocket devices.

With the increase of cell phones sales in the last several years (experts quote numbers as high as 500 million cell phone sales annually) compared to desktop sales (that have peaked at about 155 million), it’s easy to see why the competition is heating up. There is amazing growth potential for any company that can come up with a dependable and affordable web browser that can be used as a cell phone browser.

Companies such as Mitsubishi, Motorola, and NEC are now competing with traditional browser providers such as Microsoft and Opera to find a place in this new market.

A cell phone browser is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a compacted version of a traditional desktop web browser that allows the cellular user to access web pages and URL’s from their cell phones or wireless handsets.

These new cellular phone browsers must be able to properly handle and reformat web pages so that they can be viewed properly from a tiny LCD screen as well as give the ability to “surf” online.

Cellular phone browsers must also allow for e-mail access and other traditional desktop forms of communication. In fact, companies like Opera and Mozilla are working on cellular phone browsers that have built in IRC (Internet Relay Chat) programs, email service, and the ability to “rework” HTML code so that it can appear properly on a cell phones screen.

The biggest problem with any browser for cell phones is the size. While traditional desktop browsers can afford to be hundreds of megabytes with tons of extra files and add-ons, there simply isn’t enough room in cell phones.

Many companies working on cell phones & browsers are pushing the 5MB mark, and as the technology improves expect those browsers to get even smaller.

Also see; cell phone terms.

Author Notes:

Bill Schnarr contributes and publishes news editorial to http://www.cell-phones-n-plans.com. A cell phone industry resource that features service plan comparisons, cellular phone reviews and articles.