We study observer design for sampled-data nonlinear systems using two approaches: (i) the observer is designed via an approximate discrete-time model of the plant; (ii) the observer is designed based on the continuous-time plant model and then discretized for sampled-data implementation (emulation). We investigate under what conditions, and in what sense, these designs achieve convergence for the unknown exact discrete-time model. We present examples which show that designs that violate our conditions may indeed lead to instability when implemented on the exact model. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.