Is Effective Pixels the same this as Mega Pixels?

Just curious cause I'm checking out a camerain the Radio Shack flyer and it says that the camera is 2.0 Mega Pixels, but when I researched it and went to the website it stated that the camera has 3.2 Million Effective Pixels.

 

"Digital camera manufacturers often quote the total number of pixels of the sensor to indicate the camera’s resolution. However, not all of these pixels are used for recording the image.

For a digital camera to know what black is, it needs to take a dark current reading, which is the base value of a completely black pixel. For this purpose some of the vertical columns and horizontal rows on the edge of the sensor are covered with a black dye – so called Video Signal Shading – and cannot be used for recording the image. Within this number of “black” pixels the manufacturer has the flexibility to choose the output image size which will fit into a standard aspect ratio such as 4:3 (1600 x 1200 or 2048 x 1536 pixels) or 3:2 (the equivalent of 35 mm film) and crop the CCD’s pixels accordingly.

When comparing digital cameras and their resolutions, it pays to be aware of the effective number of pixels, as often the total number of CCD pixels is quoted as an advertising ploy. (compare flatbed scanners and their interpolated resolutions quoted in advertisements as opposed to their effective resolutions). The effective pixel count is the number that matters, because this is the actual number of pixels that can be used for recording an image."

(Source http://www.dcviews.com/tutors.htm )


Also some manufacturers (like Fuji) use interpolation to make the images larger, thus allowing you to make larger prints. IMO it is a useless feature as it makes the images look way too soft, and actually it's kind of similar to a digital zoom (another useless feature).

 

I figured as much, thanks guys. The camera I am talking about is the Fuji Film FinePix A210, on sale at Radio Shack for $270. The flyer says 2MP but when I checked out the Fuji site it just said 3.2 million effective pixels. My dad is looking at one for my sister, who won't be printing out pixs any bigger then 5x7 or maybe the occasional 8x10. All the reviews I've found on this camera have been good.

 

The A210 is actually 3.2mp (not interpolated)

There could have been a misprint in the flyer, as the A205 is a 2MP camera. Decent point & shoot cameras though, I have the 2650 which is the old version of the A205

 

So would $270 be a good price for the A210?