So I did some research and created an Excel sheet to determine the best virtual resolution to chose if one planes to make a 2D Pixelart game for mobile devices in landscape mode with horizontal gameplay.
I assumed that non square pixels and non-integer scaling are undesired and created a list of the most used resolutions (based on unity3d statistics), combined it with a personal factor (so that my favorite target devices are more important in the calculations than simple demographics) and calculated the lost screen space for each device into a comparable value.
For android games go with a virtual screen size of 640x360. It's a 16:9 resolution so you won't lose any pixels on 720p (2x scale), 1080p(3x scale) and 1440p (4x scale) devices. The fairly popular Galaxy S2 and S3 mini are nearing their end but are still used by a lot of people. At 1x scale the rest of the pixels on screen can be used to extend the displayed content (but this can result in an unfair advantage, depending on the game) or you could simply take out overlays and put them in pretty boxes outside of the game window.
For iOS games the resolution of choice would be 432x243 if legacy support is required (pre iPhone 6). Adjusted assets for these devices are required as down scaling would lead to missing pixels and artifacts. Please keep in mind that while the majority of devices on android are at 16:9 resolution, all iOS tablets have an aspect ratio of 4:3 and the popular iPhone 4/4s has a 3:2 aspect ratio. 432x243 won't scale full screen on any iOS device, but will give the best compromise in scaling the content.
If support of iPads and pre iPhone 6 isn't important, one should also chose the 640x360 resolution as this scales perfectly on the 6+ and only leads to a ~4% wasted screen space on the iPhone 6.
Here some screenshots from the android version. If you want to see more, I can also post the cross devices or ios list.
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