Yay!!! My favorite browser's Maemo version is ready for download as Alpha release at http://labs.opera.com/news/2010/05/11/. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for download.

I must say it is way better and faster than Firefox Mobile for Maemo/N900!

The only main problem I've noticed is that page load times are quite high when you compare to on board browser MicroB.

Opera Mobile for Maemo is a hobby project by Opera engineers and IS NOT OFFICIALLY supported.

Here are some screen-shots. To get original size right click and save images to your computer.

If you are a fan of Opera you were probably following Opera's Desktop Team. I don't think whole team slept this weekend  in order to relese a Opera RC 10.5 before 1st of March.

1st of March is important because Microsoft will start rolling out browser ballot screen in the EU starting from first week of March. EU users will have option to download browser of their choice instead of Windows' default browsers IE.

Most of the "standard" computer users don't even know what browser is! They call it "internet" and it usually means Windows default browser IE. Although browser ballot screen will include all popular browsers I don’t believe this will make huge difference and won’t introduce new browsers to masses.

 People mostly

• Ignore ballot screen and click X every time they see it
• Download one randomly selected browser and forget about it.
• Just click IE icon on ballot screen because they are familiar wit it.

What do you think?

Update:

Opera released download stats after ballot screen and it seems download numbers increased (source).

Growth of Opera browser downloads by country
***************************************************************************
Country---------Choice Screen increase--------Choice Screen as % of total DL
Poland ---------328.00%-----------------------77.00%
Spain-----------215.00%-----------------------68.00%
Italy-----------202.00%-----------------------67.00%
Denmark---------198.00%-----------------------66.00%
Netherlands-----157.00%-----------------------61.00%
Portugal--------157.00%-----------------------59.00%
Belgium---------123.00%-----------------------55.00%
France----------117.00%-----------------------54.00%
Sweden----------111.00%-----------------------53.00%
Switzerland-----109.00%-----------------------52.00%
Greece----------93.00%-----------------------48.00%
Austria---------85.00%-----------------------46.00%
United Kingdom--85.00%-----------------------46.00%
Czech Republic--64.00%-----------------------39.00%
Germany---------64.00%-----------------------39.00%
Norway----------57.00%-----------------------37.00%
Hungary---------53.00%-----------------------35.00%
European av.----130.00%----------------------53.00%

"Opera Mini 5 beta for Android is finally here! Featuring all your favorite Opera features such as Speed Dial, tabbed browsing, compression, speed and a smooth design.

We know many of you have been waiting a long time to get Opera Mini for Android, so we're very excited to hear what you think of it!"

From http://my.opera.com/chooseopera/blog/2010/03/11/opera-mini-5-beta-for-android

Image source: http://wapreview.com/blog/?p=6640