By Adel Gabot

For the paranoid among us:

Those of you who’ve bit the bullet and sprung for an iPod Touch (or an iPhone) and are concerned about the screen issue that has come up (faulty rendering of blacks and all) and can’t tell if your new toy is one of the defective ones, or if you’re just worried about stuck or dead pixels like we all are, there is a free online test that you can use to detect any problems. (Would that there were more of these free and useful things around, huh?)

Just pop on over to AppleServedUp, and run the two sets of test they offer for free.

The first tests for stuck or dead pixels, which they accomplish by playing a video file that runs through the gamut of colors full screen so that you can examine for offending dots. You’d be surprised at what you might discover.

The second batch for the Negative Black Problem runs you through a cycle of tests, the first showing you a boxed with a slightly lighter shade of black over the darker background; if there is no discernible difference, you might have a problem. The second test is the Greyscale Gradient Test that shows you a couple of sets of gradients that might not be visible if you got a lemon. The third one is the Faulty Black Aura test which shows you the cover of Jay-Z’s The Black Album, which messes up if you got a crappy unit.

Try it out.