wow factor

Opera have released Opera 9.5 alpha, code named Kestrel.

I'm guessing Kestrel signifies agility and speed...

Internal benchmarks show up to 50 percent increase in speed compared to the previous core version in Opera 8.
http://www.opera.com/products/desktop/alfa/alfa.dml

The improved support for CSS3 and Javascript/DOM is comprehensive and detailed in full in the Changelog

Synchronize is added in this version..

Kestrel contains a sneak preview with support for bookmarks, Speed Dial and personal bar synchronization between desktop versions of Opera. To check it out, just click File - Synchronize with My Opera and follow the instructions. Get your stuff anywhere!

If your a browser tragic or seriously looking for an alternative browser, then this alpha release is worth a test flight. Note, alpha means you should not use this release in place of your regular browser. It's still far from final release and could crash.