Its been argued over before, but the main advantage of larger sensors is noise and DR. But is resolution also affected?
In this test, my Pentax Optio A30 (10MP 1/1.8" sensor) takes on my K10D (10MP and APS sensor with 9X the area). To match more or less the A30 I used a mid range 24-90 F3.5 - F4.5 zoom on the K10D.
Both cameras were shot more or less wide open (F3.1/F3/5) at an equivalent FL of around 42mm at ISO 100. Both shots were taken within 30 seconds of each other.
No resizing was done, but in the RAW conversion from the K10D (using PPL) the sharpening and colour balance was set to match as near as possible the shot from the A30.
Now I am NOT proposing that the A30 takes better pictures, but I was surprised that they were so close in resolution terms, at least in the centre frame (the quality of the A30 drops off a lot more at the edges though due to the lens).
So, see if you can tell the difference....
Here is the full picture (converted to BW so you cant use it to judge!!) and following that are 8 crops. See if you can tell which come from which camera. A big thanks to Falconeye for hosting this comparison...