dead spot on iphone touchscreen

Went to Genius Bar tonight and they replaced my phone even though the warranty had expired. He said that they are replacing them for screen problems. I am delighted after a lot of frustration. I think the phone is a refurbished one as the serial # is 'older' than my original phone, but it is in absolutely excellent condition.

That happened to my phone about a month ago after I got back from Mexico. I think it may have been the humidity from going in and out of the air conditioning and the humid air - maybe some condensation built up under the screen.

Anyway - I was still under the original warranty.
I made an appointment with the "Genius Bar" through apple's website at the local Apple Store.
They played with my phone for about a minute, opened the drawer and pulled out a brand new phone, popped my sim card out of my old phone and into my new phone, and sent me on my way.

They didn't have any explanation for it and didn't know of any way to prevent it.

But I got a brand new phone for $0. I plugged it in at home and it reinstalled all of my settings and contacts, etc from the last time I synced.

I didn't purchase the extra year of warranty, but I am contemplating if I should have spent the money.

Sadly it is a common problem with the 1st gen 8GB iPhones, as there were issues with the first release of touch screens. A friend of mine had the dreaded dead spot, out of warranty, and nothing would bring it back to life. It isn't commonly a firmware issue, so if a restore doesn't fix it, then it's not promising.

My daughter had this problem before the upgrade. We made an appointment with the Genius Bar.

I have the exact same problem after my upgrade to 2.0- except it's the top row of icons and the 1, 2 and 3 dialing. This makes it impossible to look at new email, check new voicemail, etc.

I seriously doubt it's the touch screen malfunctioning, as I can drag pages down (or move to the 2nd home page) from that spot- plus it lets me hit buttons above it, shut it down by sliding the red slider to the right, etc.

Anyone else having this problem after upgrade?

I get the same problem with my 1st gen iPhone. 456 doesn't work on the dialing, but the same area on the screen works on other screens. Dunno what it is, but Apple set me up an appointment tomorrow at the Genius Bar and we'll see what they do.

I reset, restored, all to no avail.

I posted on the original phone discussion board regarding this. I went back to the genius bar last week but they weren't of any help. Now I read that the dead areas of the screen are more and more common (Google it). I have an appointment tonight and will hopefully get things resolved.

Here is a link:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1630159&tstart=0