There have been workarounds for root without unlocking in the past. This however does not mean that there will be one for this phone.
There have also been phones with locked bootloader that have been able to be unlocked by they dev community through various means. This however can take months if it ever happens at all. I don't know how different this chip set is and if any of those differences will make it harder to work with than other phones.
Long story short, nothing is guaranteed. If it comes with no way to unlock and that is important to you, you probably need to look at another phone.
Sent from my SCH-I535
08-07-2013 11:19 AM