The Next Time U Meet A "UNNITHAN"

Unnithan

Unnithan (Malayalam: ഉണ്ണിത്താന്‍) is the modern form of the older title of Thankal (Malayalam: താങ്കള്‍), which meant "Sir" in the Malayalam language. Unnithans were among the highest of the Nair aristocracy in the Travancore region of the Indian state of Kerala. Very often Unnithan ladies were married by the Rajahs or princes of the royal families such as Mavelikara, Ennakad, Prayikkara etc. They are found in majority in Central Travancore.

Unnithans were never addressed in gatherings by their first names but instead by their family names with the title of Eman (ഏമാന്‍, a corruption of Lord), and as Thankal, even by the Maharajahs. Their women used the honorific title of Kunjamma, indicative of their greater status among the Nair community, where ladies unanimously used the title of Amma.

While other titles of nobility were used by members of various castes such as Panicker, Pillai, etc, Unnithan or Thankal was a title of high status reserved only for the highest class among the Nair aristocracy. All Unnithans were, in the past, addressed formally only as Thankal while the later term was a general surname.

These classes of Nairs dominated the civil, administrative and military elite of the Pre-British era in Kerala. The ban on their kalaris and personal army by the British along with the Land reforms in early 1900's and 1950's which lead to massive loss of land-ownership was a major blow to their social standing and power. However, they continued to be feudal Land-lords, and still owned large estates, till the Land Reforms Ordinance, which set a ceiling on the land holdings that a person or family could possess was enacted by the Kerala State Government which was the first communist state government popularly elected to power in India, which reduced many of these families to poverty overnight.

Below is an excerpt from Edgar Thurston's 'Castes and Tribes of Southern India': “The titles Unnithan and Valiathan were owned by only a certain families in Central Travancore which were very wealthy and powerful. They were to some extent self constituted justices of peace and settled all ordinary disputes arising in the Kara (village) where they resided.”

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

A mobile device for music that brings innovative new features to the mass market. Delivering on Nokia's vision to provide the best total music experience possible, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic will be among the first devices to support “Comes With Music”, Nokia's groundbreaking service which offers one year of unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalogue.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is a S60 5th Edition device with a resistive touch screen and tactile feedback. The device has variety of input methods: stylus, plectrum and finger touch support for text input and UI control (alphanumeric keypad, full and mini qwerty keyboard, handwriting recognition). Use the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic to connect to mobile broadband using WLAN or HSDPA (3.5G). Supported WCDMA frequencies depend on the region where the device is available. Find directions and locations with the integrated A-GPS and included maps.

When it comes to music phones, people all over the world want a device that is a great music experience - with more memory, loud and powerful speakers, and easy synchronization - and must still work well as a mobile phone with direct access to important contacts and content. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic delivers on all counts and allows consumers to access and share content.

Taking advantage of touch screen technology, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic introduces the 'Media Bar', a handy drop down menu that provides direct access to music and entertainment, including favorite tracks, videos and photos. The Media Bar also offers a direct link to the web and to online sharing. Because the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic supports Flash content, individuals can surf the entire web, not just pieces of it. In addition, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic offers all the music essentials, including a graphic equalizer, 8GB memory for up to 6000 tracks and support for all main digital music formats, and a 3.5mm jack. Built-in surround sound stereo speakers offer the industry's most powerful sound.

Ensuring a seamless music experience, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic also provides easy access to browse and purchase tracks from the Nokia Music Store, where applicable, while the newly updated Nokia Music PC software allows for easy drag-and-drop transfer of songs and management of any music collection.

The innovative 'Contacts Bar' lets consumers highlight four favorite contacts on their home-screen and, through a single touch, track a digital history of recent text messages, emails, phone logs, photos and blog updates.

For the best screen resolution available on a mobile phone, the 3.2" widescreen display brings photos, video clips and web content to life in vibrant color and true clarity. With a 16 by 9 aspect ratio and 30 frames-per-second playback and recording, the device is ideal for VGA quality video recording and playback.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic also features a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and, with a single touch, images or videos can be shared via a favorite online community, such as Share on Ovi, Flickr, or Facebook. Music playlist song titles can also be shared through Bluetooth, MMS or online sharing.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic supports 60 languages worldwide, which covers nearly 90 percent of the world's population. As people around the world use their phones in different ways, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic offers a variety of input methods including a virtual alphanumeric keypad, a virtual computer-style QWERTY keyboard, a pen stylus and for true music enthusiasts, a plectrum are all available.

Additional features include Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR, and USB 2.0 High-Speed.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic will be available worldwide beginning in the fourth quarter of 2008 for an estimated retail price of 279 EUR before taxes and subsidies. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic featuring “Comes With Music” will be available early next year.

A Brief Comparison of 5800 & iPhone

Camera and Video Recording

Nokia's first touchscreen phone boasts of a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, 3x digital zoom, auto focus and a dual-LED flash. It also has a second backward facing camera. This compares to Apple 3G iPhone's 2 megapixel camera with no video recording option and no flash support.

Unlike iPhone, Nokia 5800 offers video recording option at up to 640 x 480 pixels and up to 30 fps (frames per second). It offers up to 4x digital video zoom. The phone's front camera supports video calling feature. Nokia 5800 can support video playback up to 5.2 hours, video recording time up to 3.6 hours and video call time up to 3 hours.

No video recording in 3G iPhone also means no video conferencing. iPhone also lacks optical zoom feature.

Free Music Service

With Nokia 5800, the world's largest cellphone maker also tries to challenge Apple's dominance in the digital music arena. Beginning next year, the phone will feature Nokia's free one-year subscription for the company's new music service, `Comes With Music'.

Positioned as a music phone, Nokia 5800 comes pre-loaded with a vast range of music collection. Though iPhone users can download music from Apple iTunes, however, the service is not available for free. Apple has neither tailored any download scheme with iPhone.

Nokia's music download package is its first major push into the services business. The company said that all major music labels and most independent labels will offer their tracks as part of Nokia's 'free' music bundle "Comes with Music," raising the total number of tracks to around 5 million.

Replaceable Battery

User's one big disappointment in 3G iPhone was lack of user replaceable battery. Apple reportedly claims that it left out the user-replaceable battery option as it would add weight to the device.

However, interestingly almost all smartphones in the market, even those at the lower-end offer this option. And so does Nokia 5800.

Nokia 5800 battery life is reportedly as much as nine hours (GSM) or five hours (HSDPA), 35 hours for music playback or three hours of video. Nokia claims that the standby time is up to 17 days.

Apple iPhone support talktime of 300 minutes for 3G and 600 minutes for 2G and has a 300 hours standby time.

Bluetooth Stereo

Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic can sync with stereo Bluetooth or in-car Bluetooth handsfree, which again Apple iPhone cannot.

Nokia's touch phone supports Bluetooth version 2.0 with A2DP and AVRCP. iPhone lacks A2DP on Bluetooth. A2DP audio devices, such as stereo Bluetooth headsets, offer enhances listening quality.

Also, iPhone doesn't support file sharing feature including MP3, images and video files via Bluetooth.

Messaging

Unlike the iPhone that doesn't allow users to forward text messages as well as MMS messages, Nokia 5800 doesn't have any such bar. The phone supports SMS, multiple SMS deletion, MMS version 1.3, message size up to 600KB and automatic resizing of images for MMS.

In iPhone users can only send text messages or snapshots via email. Also, users can't send a SMS to multiple contacts as iPhone has no option for that either.

iPhone also lacks support for voice-recognition that allows users to dial verbally. Here again Nokia 5800 takes the lead, the phone supports voice commands and dialing feature.

Adobe Flash Player

According to media reports, Adobe is working on Flash for iPhone. This means user needs to wait as and when it gets launched.

However, no wait for prospective Nokia 5800 buyers, as the Xpressmusic phone already offers Adobe Flash support. Flash is required to power many online video services and websites. This means with no Flash support when users will browse Web pages which require Flash, they will see empty spaces with missing icons on iPhone. Apple claims that Flash may slow down browsing on iPhone.

Incidentally, iPhone supports YouTube which requires Flash. This means users cannot get all YouTube video, but only a few selected ones that have been rolled out for the Apple-favored H.264 video codec.

Cost Advantage

Nokia 5800 too looks more attractive vis-a-vis 3G iPhone in terms of pricing. Nokia 5800 will be available at an unsubsidized price of 279 Euros ($390). When compared to the 3G iPhone, the unsubsidized versions of 8GB model cost 499 Euros ($700) in Italy or 350 pounds ($619.19) in UK. Nokia is yet to disclose the operator deals and other details.

It is expected that the phone will hit Indian stores by the end of December. However, in India Nokia so far has never sold its phones tied to any specific operator.

Apple iPhone comes only on Bharti Airtel and Vodafone network in India. So, Nokia 5800 Xpress Music seems all set to give tough competition to Apple iPhone which retails at Rs 31,000 for 8GB and Rs 36,000 for 16GB in India.

Touch-cum Keyboard

For text input Nokia's touchscreen phone has four options: handwriting, mini QWERTY keyboard, full screen QWERTY and alphanumeric keypad. The handwriting and mini QWERTY keyboard are stylus operated.

Apple's iPhone lacks Stylus, which, however, can be added as an accessory. Also, alphanumeric keypad and landscape keyboard is missing.

Expandable Memory Slot

Nokia's touchscreen device comes with 81MB internal memory, 8GB microSD memory card, capable of further expanding up to 16GB.

However, iPhone which comes with storage options of 8GB and 16GB models cannot be further expanded. It has no memory expansion slot. The 2G iPhone was also available with same memory capacity with no further expansion.