CSS3 media queries (AWD) and IE8 do not get along. If you had to choose to support 1, which do you choose and why?

You don't need to support one or the other, you should use progressive enhancement. People on newer browsers will get things like border-radius and so on, IE8 users don't. Your css3 things should be there to enhance the user experience but your website should still work without them.

 

There are js polyfils that allow you to use html5 elements and media querys in IE8.

 

I have actually dropped IE8 support because

• Useage has dropped such that it's not economically feasable to really support it now.
• Microsoft themselves no longer release security updates for winXP which was the initial problem as the latest IE version you could use was 8.
• Google no longer support IE8 in a lot of their products.

Edited December 3, 201411 yr by rbrtsmith

Is there anyway of finding out what screen resolutions are synonymous with IE8 today?

I'm not sure perhaps Google analytics can get this kind of data. however you should ensure your content looks good at all screen resoloutions. All of our work should be device agnostic and use progressive enhancement techniques.