USB microscope, does more MP mean more zoom?

[frank26080115]

This question might sound stupid...

I'm looking around for USB microscopes. The cheap ones on eBay are generally 200x with 2 MP, but I did find one that claimed to be 400x. The Adafruit one is 200x with 5MP.

5 MP is around 2584 x 1936
2 MP is around 1632 x 1224

The difference is about 1.58

does that mean the Adafruit microscope has effectively 316.3x zoom in comparison?

I understand that the 200x specification refers purely to the optical lens, but I am still curious as to the practical implication of more pixels and whether or not it is as useful as optical zoom.

Also, since you guys tried out various microscopes and picked out this particular one to sell, can you comment on the 400x one, if you've encountered it?

Thanks

[adafruit_support_bill]

More megapixels generally means you can crop more with less loss of pixel resolution. Assuming that the optical resolution exceeds the pixel resolution, more pixels is better.