Someone mentioned a warranty.
While the opportunity has passed, I took advantage of a promo that SquareTrade had on Tuesday for a three year, no deductible warranty that includes damage replacement for my iPad. The cost before tax was $129.00.
It was a no-brainer compared to AppleCare, which is only two years and has a $49 deductible for each of the two allowable damage replacement/repair incidents.
I have always had AppleCare for any of my laptops, and I think it's even more relevant for the iPad.
I work in an educational environment, and we have been seeing about a 25% damage rate on our student used iPads.
MacDann