Internet access, emails, MSN Messenger abroad on mobiles - cheaper with Opera Mini

In the last year, I have made a few trips abroad (Tunisia, Ireland and Brazil) and discovered a way of keeping costs down whilst using mobile data.

It's cost me no more than 4 pounds for 2 weeks' worth of email checking and MSN Messaging. so worth looking at if you are going out of the country and need to keep across emails.

Plus, it's also cost effective for sending messages by MSN - each message only cost me a penny or less each - so good if more than one of you are going away - you can both keep in touch by MSN rather than texts (which can be 40p a text message when roaming).

Here's how:

Before you go, install the Opera Mini 3 browser on your handset. This works with most modern phones with "Java", such as Nokias and devices with Windows Mobile. Go to http://mini.opera.com on your phone and download version 3 (that's version THREE).

Set it up and switch off the "download images" option (you don't want to download images whilst roaming)

That's pretty much it!

Now you can access most websites via this browser including email providers like GMail, Hotmail and also corporate Outlook Exchange webmail.

And for instant messaging, as mentioned above, the web-based version of MSN Messenger also works. An ideal alternative for keeping in touch rather than by text.

Go to http://mobile.msn.com and login with your MSN password.

Now, here's an even more interesting bit!

I found if I kept the data transfer to below 1k per "GPRS" session, it did not register enough to get billed. So after making each page request or MSN message, I was able to press the red "end call" button on my Nokia, thus ending the GPRS session. Then the next message I sent or page I downloaded automatically reconnected a new session. So quite a bit of my surfing was free.

I am wondering if any people going abroad can further test this as I only noticed this on my return last week. Ideally someone with additional "proper" internet access on a PC who can check their accumulated account charges with their mobile operator's website without incurring charges for doing so.

Please report your findings here.

My operator charges £7.50 per meg which is very high for normal browsing, but using a browser like Opera Mini which serverely compresses the data and strips out ads, gives you very low data charges indeed.

There have been a few posts about Opera Mini, and I would like to add my support, particularly with the cheapness of MSN Messenger using it and to raise awareness of the sneaky disconnect/reconnect data trick which could lower costs even more.

Regards and Happy Easter.