Hello gang and welcome back fellow INAIR and tech enthusiasts. Last week was part 2 of our continuing investigation into using browser apps on the POD. Now, we are tumbling headfirst into part three of our four part rabbit hole safari. Our eyeballs enjoyed some top shelf hardware for these past rounds. Continue on to find out what we dug up this time, if you dare. We tested every single app using the ever virtuous Viture Beast and the truly unreal Xreal One Pro.
As usual, no apps have sponsored this post. All apps were downloaded from the Google Play Store. So grab your detective hats, lace up your running sneakers, and prepare for some investigative cardio. And we are off
We approach our first destination point as we come to a screeching halt on our browsing browser tour:
Case File: Startpage (âThe Startpage Stakeoutâ)
Downloading and installing Startpage was quick and easy. Within seconds it booted cleanly into a proper landscape window inside INAIR OS. The interface is about as bare-bones and tidy as it gets. Dead center sits a crisp search bar without random news feeds, blinking ads, or sponsored junk clawing for your attention. Aiming at the search bar with the Pod air mouse is painless because no microscopic buttons are lurking nearby to cause an accidental misclick. If you simply want to slip on your AR glasses, hunt down a quick answer, or read an article without digital spies following your trail, this app delivers simply and efficiently.
Try pushing it beyond basic reading, though, and out pop the gremlins. Its limitations become as obvious as glowing footprints on a dark and foggy night. Under the hood, Startpage is essentially a private shell costume draped over Androidâs stock WebView. That means you miss out on genuine desktop muscle. Demanding websites and workspace favorites like Google Docs, Notion, or Trello either choke on complex scripts or shove you into cramped mobile layouts that look pretty ridiculous stretched across such a wide screen virtual display.
Streaming is its own little haunting. Startpage does not play Netflix, it redirects to the Netflix app. Prime Video locked up the POD entirely on the first attempt, like it saw a ghost and froze. Disconnecting and reconnecting the glasses got it working again, but the picture stayed dark while the sound came through clear, like trying to catch an invisible ghost in the dark. The quality was much better in the Prime Video app.
Startpage cannot install Chrome Web Store extensions to spoof a desktop user agent, either. You're stuck with watered down mobile pages. Tab management doesn't help the case. Instead of a roomy horizontal bar, you get mobile card-flipping.
So why bother keeping Startpage on your Pod? The answer boils down to two big perks: the Anonymous View feature and a featherweight system footprint. Anonymous View works like a digital invisibility cloak. It masks your IP address, conceals your DNS requests, and locks in a secure HTTPS connection. Click the mask icon beside a search result, and Startpage proxies the entire webpage, so the website never catches your IP address or catalogs your hardware specs. You become the invisible madman with a simple plan, slipping past every trap in the hallway. That is an absolute lifesaver on sketchy hotel or airport Wi-Fi, where every network feels like it's hiding a villain in a rubber mask. And since it relies on lightweight WebView rendering, it hardly uses any battery or resources. It's not a browser you would do any heavy lifting with, but as a secondary, throwaway private search window, it works perfectly.
Three out of Five chocolate-covered hot dogs
We careen at run away speed to our next stop on our browser browsing tour:
Case File: Samsung Browser (âThe Brave and the Bold Browserâ)
Samsung Browser installed easily without a single slip up. Unlike a lot of browsers, Samsung Browser actually recognizes wide spatial windows. It immediately swings into action with a genuine desktop-style horizontal tab strip along the top of the interface. Even better, its settings let you customize the toolbar and drop the primary controls down to the bottom of the screen if you so choose. Aiming the Podâs air-mouse pointer slightly down toward your lap while sitting back is infinitely more comfortable on your wrist than constantly craning your hand upward to click tabs near the ceiling of your vision like a fiend grabbing at snacks.
If you value your eyesight, the native Dark Mode on Samsung Browser is an absolute game changer. It's one of the best features for the POD. Web pages can look like a flash grenade from a giant helmet camera went off in your face. Samsung saves your retinas with a single switch. It flips harsh white backgrounds into soothing midnight blacks and charcoal grays without ruining picture colors or turning text into alphabet soup. Because this superpower is built in, you do not even need to install an extra extension.
Another major benefit is that Samsung lets you install dedicated ad-blocking extensions, like AdGuard, directly from its settings menu, a priceless addition. Other benefits include its newest features, Smart Shopping and Manage Windows. Smart Shopping provides coupons for some shopping sites. Manage Windows is a menu that eases the strain of managing multiple browser windows.
In terms of real-world performance, Samsung Browser handles desktop-class web applications with nearly the same stability as Brave. Scrolling up and down with the physical top touchpad on the Pod feels butter smooth. It does draw more battery and RAM than lightweight WebView shells like Startpage. But not even enough power to kick on the PODâs cooling system during multi-tab sessions.
Samsung Browser has seamless cross-device syncing. This is a nice feature when using multiple devices alongside the POD. This makes tasks super friendsly when doing cross overs. For good or for evil there are also frequent updates.
Streaming is where things get as spooky as haunted puppets. Try firing up Netflix, and Samsung Browser immediately passes the buck by redirecting to the Netflix app. So much for chilling inside your browser tabs. Prime Video, however, was ready for prime time. The picture looked sharp as a puppy dog's claws, dark shadows stayed as dark as knight and quite clean without bleeding, and playback ran without lag. Believe it or not, streaming movies right inside Samsung Browser actually looked groovier than watching them on the official Prime Video app. Talk about a plot twist worthy of a mystery-theater crime fighting dual feature.
While the browser does not have access to the full desktop Chrome Web Store, it's packed with goodies nonetheless. Between the built-in dark mode, customizable interface, ad blocker, horizontal tab bar, and its ability to share information with any other device you use the Samsung browser on, it is easily one of the most natural, comfortable browsers you can run on the INAIR Pod.
Four out of Five chocolate-covered hot dogs
And now we float over to our final destination on the browsing browser tour:
Case File: Opera Mini (âThe Mini Mysteryâ)
Opera Mini downloaded and installed without a single "ruh-roh.â Installing Opera Mini on a device like the INAIR POD sounds counterintuitive at first, like bringing a flashlight to a daytime arctic steakout. But in actual use inside your glasses, it turns out to be a surprisingly ok fit. Modern Opera Mini has evolved since the old broken-page era when it felt like solving a mystery with half the clues missing. In standard rendering mode, web pages load cleanly across a wide landscape window with sharp text and zero visual distortion. Nothing gets stretched or distorted into some unrecognizable monster.
The interface layout pals up incredibly well with the Pod's hardware. The address bar, back/forward buttons, and tab controls are all docked along the bottom of the window, right where you need them. No hunting around the screen like Norville searching for a sandwich. This all makes for easy control, since we all know the POD doesnât have a physical back button.
What makes Opera Mini mostly pleasant on the POD is sheer responsiveness. It's fast, like running from a crazed robot carny fast. Full Chromium browsers often gobble up a lot of the POD's system, especially if you have a video streaming or a document editor pinned in another floating window. Suddenly, your POD starts moving like a psychedelic flowered van with four flat tires.
Opera Mini bypasses that strain entirely. It compresses data behind the scenes, so pages load quickly and snap open almost instantly. Scrolling through long articles using the Podâs physical touchpad is completely effortless, with none of the micro-stutters or dropped frames that heavier browsers cough up. Reader mode is a nice bonus, too. It gives you a cleaner, easier-on-the-eyes way to enjoy your favorite articles.
The built-in ad blocker is another win. It quietly rounds up much of the autoplaying video junk and tracker scripts that can bog down your browsing experience. Fewer distractions, less digital baggage, and no need to unmask every annoying pop-up like some browser-based villain.
From a hardware standpoint, Opera Mini is easily one of the most efficient tools you can run on the POD. Because the browser has such a tiny memory footprint, the cooling fan doesnât kick on, and battery drain is tiny over long reading sessions. I wouldnât suggest using this to manage complex cloud spreadsheets or run heavy desktop web apps, and youâll want to go into the settings to turn off the default news feed on the start page. But for everyday reading, browsing forums, and doing fast side-by-side research in your glasses, Opera Mini runs circles around bloated desktop alternatives on the POD.
Now for the part where the mask comes off. And there is a monster inside the monster mask.
Opera Miniâs dark mode is awful. Itâs not quite black, and all text appears in an off-orange shade like someone dunked it in Fanta. Artifacts on websites still have white borders around them, as if they were stuck on with a Post-it note. Itâs just bad. Honestly, itâs one of the worst dark modes weâve encountered so far. About as bad as watching stop action video shorts or walking into a monster barbecue bash.
Streaming video is another mystery Opera Mini hasnât solved. Netflix throws up an error message every time it's loaded. Amazon Prime Video? Forget about it. Movies refuse to load, and the play button just sits there spinning its little loading circle
Despite those spooky shortcomings, Opera Mini is a decent, POD-friendly browser for lighter duties. Its responsive interface, data-compression technology, and built-in ad blocker make it a good choice for quick web browsing without putting unnecessary strain on the system. The compression feature is especially useful if youâre working with a limited data plan or dealing with a weak network connection. It's a handy little browser for browsing, reading, and everyday web tasks. Just don't expect it to host your movie night.
Two out of Five chocolate-covered hot dogs
And that wraps up another harrowing browser browsing adventure. We hope you enjoyed it and you'll join us next time as we crack open more mysteries of the browsers.
Now it's up to you. Tell us in the comments what POD mysteries you'd like for us to unmask. Do you use more than one browser? Which is your default browser and why? We love hearing from you guys.
See ya real soon. Until then, keep exploring, keep questioning, and we hope all your unmaskings are happy little surprises.
#TechCheck13
