when using a text mode program such as elinks, for example, in xterm I have no problem with resolution. That is, I'm able to view webpage normally in text mode, scroll it up and down etc. In console the webpage comes out as too big for my screen it starts scrolling sideways when I try to tab my way down etc. So somehow in console the resolution is not reported correctly to the programs. Another situation where I had similar issue is by trying to view movies in ascii mode (not high priority obviously, but still)
So doing 'mplayer -vo aa movie_file.avi' I see a bunch of characters scrolling on the screen but no discernible picture. When I run the same command from xterm I'm able to see ascii-fied movie just fine.

You need to use the -quiet type options when on the console, so it doesn't scroll the image while outputing information in addition to the text of the image. There's also a few enviroment variables that set up the dimensions.

set | more

COLUMNS=124
LINES=35
(from my xterm after manually dragging it. If these aren't set (or set wrong), it could confuse the applications using a console.)