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Over at mBricks my colleagues have put a lot of work into the device database (we work with WURFL data and contribute back as well as we can). I took the opportunity to take a closer look at screen size trends. The data I have covers about 400 different device models sold from 2005 to today.

Too often, when companies decide to make a mobile version of their application, they take their desktop application or site, decide which features work for mobile, and then convert those features to a mobile language or two. Through this method we get flight times, stock prices, checking email, checking calendars, local weather, and several other useful but limited applications. These applications do not fully meet user needs. To do anything in particular, the user has to visit several applications, one after the other, remembering data from application to application.

Among the many websites that are out there, few are standards-compliant. Among those few, only a handful sport style sheets adjusted to the needs of handheld devices. Of those which do offer styling for handhelds, not all will fit the smallest, lowest-resolution screens without presenting the user with the ultimate handheld horror: namely, horizontal scrolling. The Opera browser runs on handheld devices of all screen sizes and resolutions, some of them only 120 pixels wide. We work for the company that produces Opera, so we can offer a degree of insight into the functions of Opera for handhelds. In this article, we've prepared a set of general suggestions for creating a handheld-friendly style sheet, along with a few Opera-specific pointers that you may find useful.