The main differences between synchronized method and block in Java based upon experience and syntactical rules of synchronized keyword in Java. Though both block and method can be used to provide highest degree of synchronization in Java, use of synchronized block over method is considered as better Java coding practices.
1) One significant difference between synchronized method and block is that, Synchronized block generally reduce scope of lock. As scope of lock is inversely proportional to performance, its always better to lock only critical section of code. One of the best example of using synchronized block is double checked locking in Singleton pattern where instead of locking whole getInstance() method we only lock critical section of code which is used to create Singleton instance. This improves performance drastically because locking is only required one or two times.
2) Synchronized block provide granular control over lock, as you can use arbitrary any lock to provide mutual exclusion to critical section code. On the other hand synchronized method always lock either on current object represented by this keyword or class level lock, if its static synchronized method.
3) Synchronized block can throw throw java.lang.NullPointerException if expression provided to block as parameter evaluates to null, which is not the case with synchronized methods.
4) In case of synchronized method, lock is acquired by thread when it enter method and released when it leaves method, either normally or by throwing Exception. On the other hand in case of synchronized block, thread acquires lock when they enter synchronized block and release when they leave synchronized block.
