CSS media queries - width versus device-width



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In CSS media the difference between width and device-width can be a bit muddled, so lets expound on that a bit. device-width refers to the width of the device itself, in other words, the screen resolution of the device. 

Lets say your screen's resolution is 1440 x 900. This means the screen is 1440 pixels across, so it has a device-width of 1440px. Most mobile phones have a device-width of 480px or lower, including the popular iPhone 4 (with device-width: 320px), despite it technically having a 640 x 960 resolution. 

This is due to iPhone 4's retina display, which crams two device pixels into each CSS pixel on the screen. This is true for the Ipad 3 as well; its reported device-width is 768px just like its predecessors, even though its actual screen resolution is 1536px x 2048px. 

In general width is more versatile when it comes to creating responsive webpages, though device-width is useful when you wish to specifically target mobile devices (and not desktops with a small browser window for example), as rarely do desktops have screen resolutions below a certain number such as 320px x 480px.
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read more at:
http://www.javascriptkit.com/dhtmltutors/cssmediaqueries2.shtml

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