Well, crap. Thanks for your reply, my screen is in fact a white tabbed one, so it seems I can't use it in my AGB-001. So this brings me to this question:
how can I see if I get a model with an AB screen (brown tab)?
I've pulled one of each type of screen from pearl blue GBA SP's. One thing i noticed, was the plastic under the paint of the two systems was a different color, which could be seen by like, looking at the inside of the battery drawer for instance. The one that gave me a white tab had like a sea green plastic, and the one that gave me a brown tab had a much closer color matched blue to the paint.
I've heard the white tabs referred to as "Original" and the brown tabs referred to as "Third Party." I think it's mostly originated on Chinese sites calling them like that. It seems to imply that part way through the manufacturing run of the AGS-101, Nintendo switched who was making the actual part. I would guess this means that the white tabs come from earlier AGS-101's, and the brown tabs come from later models. I somehow doubt the plastic color difference I noticed is a sure fire way to tell the difference, but it's just what I've seen personally. I don't think anyone's even attempted to figure out how the serial numbers correspond to tab color, but perhaps they might?
Also, fun fact, I think I figured why they call them B and AB. The two revisions of agb were 40 pin and 32 pin and came out in that order. So the 40 pin is mobo A, the 32 pin is mobo B. The White tabbed screens are called type B screens because they typically only work with 32 pin mobo. The Brown tabbed screens are called AB because they work on either. That's the easiest way of remembering it. It's also good to keep in mind as some ribbon cables out there may use this notation, as they may be picky about which screen.
There do exist ribbon cables that adapt the B screen to the 40 pin mobo, but I believe it requires some additional circuitry either on the ribbon cable or on the mobo to make it play nice and even then, I've heard mixed results, but it's hard to tell if people were actually using the right ribbon cables so it's hard to say. Here's an example of a really fancy brightness controlling ribbon cable that adapts a type B white tabbed screen into a 40 pin motherboard.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/GameBoy-Adv...with-5-level-Brightness-40-pin-B/181797004647
Expensive example, but I'm sure you could find something that fits your situation if you look around more or message the lee_chan guy or someone else who sells. You can see he mentions that it's for "pin B" Basically have to pay attention to the tab color when you're using a 40 pin mobo, and be sure to get a ribbon cable that plays nice with that specific screen. If the ribbon cable doesn't mention anything other than being "40 pin" that means it's for brown tab screens, some may call this something like a 40 pin AB connector, if it is for white tabbed B screens, it will usually specifically mention it, and it's generally seen as less supported and much more picky to get working, from what I hear.
Above, dragongc referred to the white tabbed screen as "Type A" and I believe that was incorrect, and because this honestly gets pretty confusing. The two types of screens are type AB which are brown, and type B which are white tabs. There is not a Type A screen. Also perhaps worth mentioning, though not as directly related to your case, some people have complained that even though AB screens are supposed to be good to go with EITHER mobo type, they tend to be a lot harder to get to work with 32 pin mobos, so your safest best for 32 pin mobo is type B white tab. I'm going to be putting an AB screen into my 32 pin AGB later today if I get around it, was planning to anyways, will edit in how that goes for me in case anyone happens to be reading this just trying to sort out these crazy screen names
