The Internet experience delivered by many mobile phones isn't great, to put it kindly. Not everyone wants, needs or can afford a smartphone to get more satisfactory Web browsing, though. For these folks, a good and economical (e.g. free) alternative to the browser shipped with their mobile handset is Opera Mini, of which a beta of version 4.1's just been released.

Opera Mini, which has been downloaded over 25 million times, has a reputation for coming the closest to bringing the full Web to most Java-capable feature phones and smartphones.

With Opera Mini, pages appear as they would on a desktop. And, like with the iPhone, you can zoom into sections of the page you want to read or see more closely. Opera's Small Screen Rendering feature promises to eliminate horizontal scrolling.

This is all achieved through Opera's client-server technology: Opera's servers process Web pages requested by the client browser on a phone so they're optimized for better performance and viewing.

With version 4.1, Opera upgraded its servers to allow Opera Mini receive requests for Web pages up to 50 percent faster. And when you type Web addresses, the new version of Opera Mini will recognize and suggest completions based on your Bookmarks and browsing history.

You can also now search for text within a Web page, download and upload files without being re-rerouted to your phone's native browser, attach files Web-based e-mail, and save pages for offline viewing.

All of these new features join the improvements introduced with the release of Opera Mini 4 last fall. These included quicker scrolling, navigation and page rendering.

For a comprehensive overview of Opera Mini 4.1's feature set and find out how to obtain the new beta, see here. Click here to view a video of Opera Mini 4 in action.