In a press release earlier this week, SquareTrade, the leading online provider of supplemental warranties for consumer electronics, announced it is now offering a buyback guarantee at no additional cost as an accompaniment to its iPad 2 warranty. Many retailers, such as Best Buy, offer similar buyback guarantees for prices as high as $69.99.

Buyback warranties have become popular lately, as manufacturers trend towards shorter and shorter product release cycles. Many consumers have become hesitant to upgrade certain devices, for fear that the next generation version of that device is right around the corner. Buyback warranties, by guaranteeing consumers the return of a certain portion of their original purchase price when they trade their device in, aims to reduce this burden.

Depending on how you look at it, the "must have" iPad accessory might just be supplemental warranty or insurance protection. Not just something to extend AppleCare, but something that offers the kind of coverage that AppleCare doesn't. This means protection against accidents such as drops, spills and other mishaps and/or protection against theft. Enter third party iPad warranty and insurance policies.

Though it comes as no surprise, we've gotten emails from a number of readers who received an iPad with dead pixels and we've read about many more around the web. This comes with the territory, dead and stuck pixels are a reality of LCD technology. Different manufacturers have different policies on what constitutes an unacceptable number of dead or stuck pixels, and thus at what point the product in question is exchanged as defective. So where does Apple stand on the iPad?

Apple has no definitive guidelines on what they consider an egregious number of dead or stuck pixels on any of their products. However, Apple has traditionally been very fair and balanced when it comes to warranty exchanging their products due to customer complaints about dead or stuck pixels -- especially in the case of the iPhone. Chances are, the iPad is no different.

So how do you check to see if your iPad has dead or stuck pixels? We've put together an altogether un-fancy, but terribly simple way to check your iPad for dead or stuck pixels.