U.S. carrier S7 models have locked bootloaders and no rooting

[ironass]

The Galaxy S7 & Edge, U.S. carrier minority variants, on Qualcomm SnapDragon 820, have all chosen locked bootloaders on their carrier models and are therefore not able to be rooted at present, if indeed, ever.

This follows on from AT&T and Verizon, who issued their firmwares with locked bootloaders on the Galaxy S4, S5 and S6. It would appear that other U.S. carriers have decided to follow suit.

Make no mistake, this has nothing whatsoever to do with Samsung, whose Exynos Global and Canadian models do not have the locked bootloaders which means that 195 countries in the world are still free to root their phones, flash custom recoveries, kernels, mods and ROMs.

See, also..

[SM-G930/Exynos] CF-Auto-Root

 

[ironass]

Re: U.S. carrier models have locked bootloaders and no rooting

The Chinese Galaxy S7 model, G9308, with the Qualcomm SnapDragon 820 is apparently very quick and easy to root, using Odin, as this tutorial demonstrates...

Samsung G9308 root privileges (needs Google translate)

You just need an, "Odd Rabbit Brush"!!!

 

[ironass]

A possible temporary root exploit has been gained on the Sprint model, G935P. At the moment it is more a proof of concept and still requires work. However, if it can work on one Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 U.S. model, it should work on all unless the carriers close it off in a future update. Here is a video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LoEKHcI6yI

For more information, see the thread over on xda developers... World First Galaxy S7 Qualcomm Root

 

[ironass]

It would appear that the possible root exploit mentioned in the previous post is going nowhere and the thread on xda developers forum has now been closed.

Therefore, the situation is that the U.S. Snapdragon models are still not able to be rooted I am afraid. This does not affect the Exynos models or Chinese Snapdragon models.

 

[ironass]

Alternatively, you can now purchase the U.S. carrier free, unlocked, models of the Galaxy S7 & S7 Edge...

Samsung gives the U.S. the perfect Galaxy S7 — unlocked!

Welcome to the rest of the world U.S.A.

 

[shane_oh4]

Re: U.S. carrier models have locked bootloaders and no rooting

I own a G9308.

Do you know if this method triggers Knox? or is it similar to the SM-G930'X' models in the US :

Rooting method for the Snapdragon 820-based models in the US including SM-G930A/T/P/R/V/U
Main thread: Root s7 at&t g930a & g935a. There are other threads in device-specific sections.
This root method involves using an engineered boot image that doesn't trip Knox if you do it right, however the bootloader is locked so flashing custom ROMs is still not possible.

 

[cydewaze]

This is so bleh. I need a new phone because the orientation sensor and forward facing cam on my S5 no longer work. But I have several critical apps that require root, so I'm sort of stuck. I might look at non-Samsung phones and see what's out there.

 

[tailgunner9]

That maybe just Sim Unlocked to work with any carrier, not Bootloaders.....