TL;DR: Opera One is just another last-gen browser offering but is pitched as top-notch.

With more browsers on the rise that emphasize workspaces and treating the web as more of an OS, rather than a static application, I figured I'd step away from my mainstay browser, Brave, and try something new that promised something similar but was available now. I figured that the Opera group would have a pretty firm grasp on this concept with Opera One. But I am not impressed. More than that, I'm actually pretty confused - maybe to the point of frustration.

Much of my experience with One over the past two weeks has really highlighted two key points. Firstly, what I'm looking for apparently doesn't exist yet. Second, Opera One is a fresh coat of paint on something that isn't even remotely new. It's just Chrome with a hat on

Some key factors that stuck out to me as poor:

• Slim selection of keyboard shortcuts relative to 'new features'.
• Sync is an absolute labyrinth that ultimately does not work.
• My Flow is simply non-functional.
• Pinboards appear not to have been meaningfully updated since launch.

With AI being touted as a sort of central pillar to the browser, there appears to be a noticeable lack of it. Aria isn't available in my region, apparently. That's fair, I'm a ChatGPT subscriber, so maybe - Nope. Just a sidebar app for me. No quick access. Ctrl+/ should shortcut directly to your preferred bot. I don't see the issue in that.

With all the strange sandboxing of messenger apps, somehow messages for web (Android) and Discord didn't make the cut. I know Discord is available in GX, so what gives? Loads of teams use Discord to coordinate. Very odd.

Sync -- I have attempted to get this feature to function across so many scenarios. On a number of occasions, it was actually an impedance to real work. I log in, select what information I'd like to sync and that's great at first. One laptop, desktop and mobile client later, and there's literally nothing synced between even two of them. If I log into my very useful Opera account, I can see all the synced data all right there! Bookmarks, pinboards, passwords, etc. It's all right there. Brilliant. But as soon as one of the clients needs something that was generated/saved from/uploaded to another client - forget about it. You'll have to log in, and find it and then make use of it. Horrendous experience.

My Flow -- I haven't had the pleasure of using this even once. A feature that on paper, should be exactly what I should love about Opera. The QR/mobile sync just doesn't work between two windows machines and an android phone. I have attempted every permutation of getting these three devices (or just two) to "flow" and it simply does not function. The disjointed experience of logging in here (sometimes twice), tapping there, being presented with a 2FA code that no other client is asking to authenticate (!?). I've never seen something that is so fundamentally nonfunctional.

Pinboards should be one of the core functions of the browser. A place to endlessly assemble ideas that directly correlate with linked information (articles, images, video, etc.) Currently, it feels like something that just recently passed muster through a group that saw the potential and then never looked at it again. I was stunned to discover that this feature was announced and added to Opera two years ago and it's absolutely bare. This feature should have been an absolute powerhouse of tools. Pin a tab, drag and drop it onto a canvas that allows you to add 'post-it' style notes, draw an arrow to an imgur thumbnail. Click-drag a selection box to highlight all the above and resize it to the corner. Add a big text field that acts as a folder. Drag and drop all that stuff into the field and jooop! right click to share it. Fluid, fast ideation for whatever the hell you want/need to do. Instead, we have a trello board. Nice one. Oh and as previously mentioned, if I made a board on desktop, it lives there forever. Excellent.

I was really hoping for an experience that matched the copy on the home site. It's not here. Nothing even remotely innovative is happening here. I have to move on to another product.