A version of a piece of software that is made available for testing, typically by a limited number of users outside the company that is developing it, before its general release.
having fooled around with a beta version, I have to say that it's a technical marvel
Compare with alpha version
Example sentencesExamples
It unveiled the beta version of the site to its 2 million subscribers last week and plans a hard launch within the next couple of weeks.
We plan to ship beta versions to our external testers soon.
One e-mail said the company will ship the first beta version of the software next February.
The early beta version included only HyperWord, email, and a few extras.
For example, when tweaking the beta version resulted in some shipping delays, the firm e-mailed buyers to explain.
Definition of beta version in US English:
beta version
noun
Computing
A version of a piece of software that is made available for testing, typically by a limited number of users outside the company that is developing it, before its general release.
having fooled around with a beta version, I have to say that it's a technical marvel
Compare with alpha version
Example sentencesExamples
It unveiled the beta version of the site to its 2 million subscribers last week and plans a hard launch within the next couple of weeks.
We plan to ship beta versions to our external testers soon.
For example, when tweaking the beta version resulted in some shipping delays, the firm e-mailed buyers to explain.
One e-mail said the company will ship the first beta version of the software next February.
The early beta version included only HyperWord, email, and a few extras.