Samsung Galaxy S 4 isn't even out yet, but it might have been rooted already (update: or not)

We might have spent a few hours toying with Samsung's new mobile hardware, but some tinkerers over at XDA-Developers claim have had enough time to root the Galaxy S 4, already. This means those (very) early adopters might be able to peruse the inner workings as soon as it arrives on store shelves. There's a video of the process after the break and you can pick up all the necessary custom ROM files (and warnings of not to meddle with what you do not understand) at the source. There is one tiny caveat to the news, however, as the rooting magic is focused squarely on the Exynos 5 Octa model for now. According to SAM Mobile, several batches of the new Galaxy phone are rumored to be packing Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 instead of Samsung's homemade chip series. An official spokesperson from the UK branch has confirmed that it'll arrive there with the Snapdragon processor.

Update: Perhaps we were a little too zealous. Notable smartphone tinkerer Chainfire has taken to Google Plus to note that this would be a pretty huge accomplishment given the limited number of handsets currently out there. Most of the XDA-Developers thread details custom ROMs, while the Galaxy S 4 apparently has a few extra tricks to slow down the rooting process. Read Chainfire's full breakdown in More Coverage. Apologies for any confusion.

Update 2: A mere day and a half later, and Chainfire's been in touch to confirm he/she has a working root for the S 4, although aren't yet able to try it out on the final retail iteration. We'll have to wait a few weeks before it's able to pass that tet.