Quick question about resolution

[Mr Initial Man]

How vital is it that all website layouts look good in everything from 800X600 on up?

[Ness_du_Frat]

Heuuuu, I would say it was quite vital a few years ago, but now...
My latest website was designed for resolution 1024x768, and most people complained that "it looks soooooo small on my 1280x1024 / 1600x1200 screen !!!"
I think you can cut the apple and design for 1024x768.

[felgall]

Most handheld devices have still have screen widths under 400. Many using larger screen resoltions open their browser at smaller sizes. Designing with a specific minimum size in mind is far LESS relevant now than ever before. Your visitors can have browser sizes of anything at all and full screen of any resolution is completely irrelevant.

[Mr Initial Man]

Most handheld devices have still have screen widths under 400.

I believe handhelds have a different value for "media=""" though.

[wamboid]

A quick glance at last months stats for my most visited site showed 38.5% of the users were at 800X600 and only .07% were any smaller. The rest were all larger, but as felgall reminds us, who knows how large their browser window actually was (same could be said for the 800X600 contingent, but I would think less likely). To me, those numbers are large enough that I might optimize for larger resolutions, but would make certain that I liked the way it looked at something as small as 800X600.