Good news, everyone! (Hah, this never get’s old!) I have lots of love for the Fairphone support team to share: I sent in my FP1 and got it fixed on warranty. It arrived yesterday - and I even managed to let the package sit for a while before opening it. Checked it, the ‘clock reset problem’ is gone.
Thanks, Esmée, Ramon, and whoever else was involved!
Important info for everyone, which is easily forgotten/overlooked: after getting your phone back from repair, you have got three months warranty on that repair, so even if you would be running out of the normal warranty period, the extension would have you covered.
Sadly, as mentioned above, the on-board cell battery is non-replaceable (without soldering), and Fairphone has no spare parts (i.e., no cell batteries to swap for those). Support told me they had to replace my motherboard. (I actually haven’t checked if IMEIs and MAC are now different, I really just opened the box and checked if the problem was gone. I might notice soon enough, and expect some trouble…)
Bottom line: I consider this non-replacability of the buffer battery a serious design flaw, and hope this will be avoided in the FP2.
I would have loved to get the old motherboard back I asked, but so far Esmée and Ramon didn’t react to that request. Apart from the battery, is was functioning well.
I would have kept it for tinkering and as a backup if mine ever had more serious problems. I’ve also got a friend who is seriously giftet with electronics, and he would have loved to play with that motherboard! (He probably would have immediately tried to interface it with an Arduino to use Nixie tubes as a display… Ok, that was just guessing.)
Now, I have to set up my phone again. But first, since it’s reset anyway, I shall apply to become a beta-tester! Yay!