Hi,
I can definitely confirm now that it is the speaker's magnetic field that's interfering and causing a blind spot on my device.
I've run a small iron keyring attached to a string (lol...) across the back of the device, and found a pretty strong magnetic field. Strong being, strong enough to actually get the keyring to stick to the white button at the back. I mean, ok, there *should* be some kind of magnetic shielding on the other side of the speaker, or I'd hope so anyway... *edit* Nope - or at least not effective : I've run the keyring across the screen - there's a magnetic field there too centered around the dead zone. The ring doesn't actually stick, but swinging the ring across the field actually distorts its movement, so there's a slight field there too. *edit*
Now, I don't know if this is a normal thing, but could anyone that
doesn't have this problem confirm that their speaker is not like this? *edit* well, ok - the speaker probably would be like that since it contains a magnet..., but could anyone please check the screen for this? *edit*
I'm not sure if it has to do with actually trying to use the speaker, but one of the first things that I've tried with the device when I got it was to play an mp3 through the speaker, and cranking the volume to max to test how strong the speaker was... ;/. Anyway, not using the said speaker again. Hopefully the magnetic field will weaken over time, but I wouldn't suggest to anyone to actually try the same thing...
I guess I'll read up on degaussing and magnetic shielding
...