How is sprite scaling handled base on screen resolution

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C#

XNA4.0

Monogame

I'm porting a WP7 game to WP8.1 and Windows 8 using Monogame 3.4

I chose the solution template that is for both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.1

I've imported my textures. However, the issue I'm having is that when the game is running on a phone device my textures are distorted (tall and skinny), and on the windows 8 tablet simulator, the graphics are the correct dimension / scale, but the orientation is incorrect.

I want the game to run in portrait mode on the phone. On the tablet, it could run in either orientation.

How is scaling best handled for the different orientations? Does a scaling factor have to be passed to each sprite object that has a draw method?

I found the following Scaling Sprites Based On Screen Size[^]

I'm not sure I follow exactly what this is doing, and when I tried to incorporate it, having the graphics.ApplyChanges in the update causes the game to exit out prematurely.