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Opera Mini, which is already available for BlackBerrys, Sony Ericsson handsets and other models, will be arriving in the App Store in the form of a downloadable app but will it prove big competition for Safari?

This all depends on what killer features Opera Mini has and how Apple allows it to live on the iPhone.

Next week at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, the Opera guys will be providing full demos to the press of the browser, complete with features like tabbed browsing, password manager and Speed Dial.

Speed Dial compiles your start screen within Opera Mini: it displays a panel of your sites from which to navigate.

Opera has not given a date for when the downloadable app will be available to the general public.

"This is a unique opportunity to introduce the fast, feature-rich Opera Mini experience for the iPhone, and to showcase our latest beta releases of Opera Mobile and Opera Mini on other platforms and devices," said Jon von Tetzchner, co-founder, Opera Software.

"Opera's mission is to bring the web to the world, and by making Opera Mini available on yet another platform, we are one step closer."

Photo: The iPhone will be sporting the mobile version of the Opera web browser

By Marie Boran