Free Windows Mobile applications, often quality can be hard to find. But today we compiled a list of five real gems. What they have to offer? Quality, usability and good looks, all in a free package for everyone on the Windows Mobile platform.

Opera Mobile
Let’s start with what is clearly the best browser available on Windows Mobile. Opera Mobile, weather it be version 9.5 that has been available for some time now, or the newest beta of 9.7 Opera Mobile will make browsing on your Touch screen device a breeze. The bookmark system, the speed and the looks and usability make it by far the best experience we ever had while browsing the net. If you have been using Opera Mobile 9.5 for some time now (it is included in many HTC ROMs) you should give 9.7 a try. Not everyone knows this but you can run the two versions side by side, so feel free to try out this beta, and if you don’t like it just uninstall it. Find it here.

Google Maps Mobile
Need we say anything about this application for your Windows phone? Google Maps works great on any Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Android, Nokia device. Google has put quite the effort in this little application to make the experience great. The only thing I would really like to see for this app is that you can predownload some maps from Google themselves, so you can view the maps a bit faster when on a slow connection. Thanks for this great app Google! You can download it here .

Facebook
Microsoft released their own Facebook for Windows Phones application recently, I guess they finally noticed how important social networks are becoming to the mobile phone community. What can I say? The application does work, but seems a bit sluggish compared with the iPhone or Android version. Let’s hope this application will improve with time and bring a good experience to the Windows Mobile 6.5 phones that are hitting the market this October. Download it here.

Stay tuned to see more posts regarding some great freeware Windows Mobile applications getting a short review. There are many more hidden gems that few people know about and are often just as good if not better then a lot of the payed counterparts.

Looking for some quality games for Windows Mobile? Check out this post.