Samsung Galaxy Nexus rooted, before it hits retail

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus isn't available in stores for a few days yet, but the device has already been rooted and the software is available to download, it's even been tested on an actual device.

We don't think we've seen this one before. Somehow, the team over at Modaco have managed to root the Galaxy Nexus before it even hits the market, with a version of Android that's not even available other than the SDK. This is nothing short of impressive.

The tool -- which is called SuperBoot -- is as simple as performing three steps:

How to use Superboot - Windows, Linux and OSX

- Download the Superboot zip file above and extract to a directory
- Put your device in bootloader mode - Turn off the phone then turn on with the 'volume up' and 'volume down' buttons both pressed to enter the bootloader (as pictured below)
- WINDOWS - double click 'install-superboot-windows.bat'
- MAC - Open a terminal window to the directory containing the files, and type 'chmod +x install-superboot-mac.sh' followed by './install-superboot-mac.sh'
- LINUX - Open a terminal window to the directory containing the files, and type 'chmod +x install-superboot-linux.sh' followed by './install-superboot-linux.sh'

The post also points out that if it's on a "retail" device, you'll need to unlock the bootloader as well, but they've included tools for that, too.

It's impressive the speed in which the team has completed the work and it'll be nice for prospective buyers to know that they won't need to wait around until a few weeks after launch to use root applications (like... flashlight for example). The tool does not require flashing, messing with the data partition or overwriting the ROM. It's just a one click process.

The Galaxy Nexus is just around the corner and things are looking sweeter than ever before for the launch.