What is a megapixel? Adam Murs
A pixel is a "picture element" or, crudely, a dot on a screen, and a megapixel is a million dots. A typical screen display is 1,280 pixels across by 1,024 pixels down, which gives 1,310,720 pixels or 1.3 megapixels. This would be an SXGA (Super Extended Graphics Array) screen.
More commonly, megapixels are used to refer to the maximum resolution that can be captured by a digital camera. For example, a 5 megapixel camera can typically take a photo that is 2,560 pixels wide and 1,920 pixels high, recording 4,915,200 pixels. This provides more resolution than a 1.3 megapixel camera, and enables you to make a larger colour print while retaining the same sharpness.
