Last week, Microsoft made a pretty surprising announcement. The company revealed that it would bring its Edge browser to iOS and Android, making it easier for existing Edge users (and possible converts) to take their browsing history, bookmarks, and other data with them. Now the beta app is available for download from the Play Store.

 

 

As mentioned in our previous coverage, the mobile ports of Edge do not use Microsoft's own EdgeHTML engine to load pages. The iOS version uses Safari's engine (as is required of all third-party browsers on iOS) and the Android version uses Chrome's Blink engine. As such, performance should be similar to Chrome under more circumstances. In my limited testing, it seemed like Edge was marginally faster than Chrome, but your mileage may vary. Also, keep in mind that this is in beta, and things may change as development progresses.

So how is the browser itself? Well, it feels like a mix of desktop Edge and mobile Chrome. The start page has your frequently-visited pages with a search bar, along with stories from MSN below that (which you can turn off). The UI is split into an address bar and Reading List/History/Bookmarks button at the top, and everything else at the bottom. Both bars pull away as you scroll down the page, and re-appear when you swipe up. Besides that, Edge does all the browser things you would expect.

It's important to note that Edge for Android/iOS is specifically aimed at people who already use Edge on the desktop. If you use another browser and you're not planning to switch, this is definitely not made for you. But for the people who actually do use Edge, being able to sync everything from your desktop browser is definitely helpful.

Edge's 'Continue on PC' button won't work if you're not on the Windows 10 Fall Creator's Update

One of the main features is the 'Continue on PC' button, which sends whatever page you're looking at to your Windows 10 PC. You need the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update for this to work, and since that hasn't left beta testing, I don't have it installed on my computer. It looks like you'll be able to pick what PC you want to send the page to, or send it to the Action Center (Windows 10's notification center) to read later across all your computers.

Since this is still in beta, many of Edge's desktop features are missing here. There's no Cortana integration or drawing on webpages. There's also no ad-blocking, extension support, or tab syncing. Still, regular Edge users should find plenty of use from this beta version, and everyone else is probably better off with whatever they're already using. You can download it from the Play Store below, or grab it from APKMirror.