Motorola began rolling out a test build of Ice Cream Sandwich late last night to several thousand users to begin testing before the general rollout. Just because you’re not part of the test group doesn’t mean you can’t get some Ice Cream Sandwich love for your Motorola XOOM tablet.

The IML77 build will bring your XOOM to Android 4.0.3 and it’s for the WiFi only model. You will need to be running stock software and have your tablet locked in order to apply the update. Here’s how to do it:

1. Download the update file.
2. Place the file on a USB drive paired to your tablet with a host cable and apply via stock recovery
3. To access stock recovery: Reboot your XOOM and after about 3 seconds of the Motorola logo press volume down. Android recovery should appear in the top left. Press volume up to select it. Once booted into recovery you should see an Android on screen and nothing else. To make the menu appear, press power and volume up simultaneously. More information about flashing via USB cable can be found here.

[via Droid Life and TalkAndroid]

Although neither device is officially listed at HTC Dev as being able to unlock the bootloader, the process has been reported that both the HTC Rezound and the HTC Vivid are able to be unlocked via the HTCDev.com unlocking tool. I shouldn’t have to tell you this will void your warranty, also you will have to perform a factory reset, so make sure you make a backup of anything important. The following instructions are from XDA Developers for the Rezound, but the same steps should work with the Vivid. They’ve been mirrored here since the same instructions were already removed from RootzWiki.

[INSTRUCTIONS]:
 
[Prerequisites:]
Google Android SDK
Java Runtime Environment
HTC Sync (Windows Only)
Enable USB Debug on Rezound
Use Charge Only mode when connected to PC
 
[Steps:]
1. Go to HTCDEV website: http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/
2. Click on “Begin Unlock Bootloader” (create a user if you don’t have one)
3. Follow the instructions step1 through step 10
4. In step 10, when posting your token, make sure you remove the blanks preceding each line
5. After you receive your Unlock_code.bin in email, follow step 11.
6. Now your rezound should reboot and you have your bootloader unlocked.
 
7. After unlocking your bootloader, use this one to get perm root:
One Click Perm Root (Thanks to NilsP)
 
8. Flash the recovery if you need. For most of us, better to wait
[Recovery] Amon Ra style vigor

The Philips GoGear Connect 3 is a relatively inexpensive Android powered personal media player. Although it’s not the most of sophisticated of devices, some users may want to achieve root access to remove some of the pre-installed bloatware. This guide is courtesy of XDA Developers and was tested with the 8GB version, but may need tweaking to work on the 16GB version of the GoGear Connect.

 

1. Put your Connect 3 into “Debug Mode”
• From the home screen, press the Menu button below the screen.
• Tap the Settings option.
• Choose Applications.
• Select Development.
• Check the box for USB Debugging to turn it on.
2. Plug in The USB cable
3. After the drivers install, uninstall them in the device manager
4. Refresh the drivers and you will see device that says GoGear Connect
5. Install the ADB driver, linked at the bottom of the page, for the GoGear Connect in the device manager
6. Download the newest copy of Super One-Click from here
7. open super one-click and change the exploit drop down menu to “zergRush”
8. Click on the root button and let it do its thing.
9. click OK on the popup to install busybox.
10. after that it may ask you to verify root, allow it to
11. you are now rooted. do a happy dance

[ADB Driver download] [via XDA Developers]

Itching for the Ice Cream Sandwich update on your Nexus S and don’t want to wait for the update? The OTA is being pushed out now, but some users may have to wait weeks for it to hit their device. If you want to update manually, the process is fairly easy. This applies to the GSM/T-Mobile version of the Nexus S only.

• Download the OTA Package
• Rename it to update.zip
• Copy it to the root of the internal storage
• Power off the device, hold Volume Up and Power to reboot into the bootloader
• Select “recovery,” then hit the power button
• Once the warning triangle appears, hold the power button and hit volume up
• Select “apply update from /sdcard” and choose the update.zip
• Once the process is finished, choose “reboot system now”

Google has a support page up for users transitioning from Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich with some helpful tips. But then again, half the fun is playing around with new firmware.

There’s currently no ETA for Ice Cream Sandwich hitting the Sprint Nexus S 4G, but it should be arriving early 2012.

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is one phone that’s hard to come by in the US right now. No carriers have officially released it, and an unlocked GSM version will run you a whole fistful of large bills. However the boys over at iFixit have one in hand and give it the usual teardown treatment.

The Galaxy Nexus got a final score of 6/10 for repairability. Although it should be noted users should take special care of the curved front glass, as it’s fused to the display and not easily replaceable. Also interesting is that the user-removable battery also contains the NFC antenna. If you want to get to know the guts of the Nexus, hit the source link for the full teardown.

[iFixit]

With the release of the Galaxy Nexus in the UK today, the official Google Nexus YouTube Channel has release a bunch of instructional videos showing off the features of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. For those of you keeping score, the Verizon-branded version can be seen in the videos, although Big Red is still mum about a release date.

[via Droid Life]

Related questions on Android Stack Exchange:

• User experience difference among Nexus S and Samsung Galaxy S
• When will my device get the Android 4.0 update (Ice Cream Sandwich)?

Phone repair site iFixit has recently done a teardown of the Motorola Droid RAZR, that just came out today (only $111.11 at Amazone Wireless, today only). If you’re interested to see what’s inside the phone, this one is a real treat. The first surprise was that the back cover comes off with no screws, but it isn’t a cakewalk. Contrary to a previous report, the battery is actually removable, if you dare. But changing out the battery not something the average owner would be doing.

Once inside the device, you can see how incredibly packed in all the components are. For the RAZR to achieve it’s 7.7mm thickness, everything is sandwiched tightly.

If you’re dying for the instructions for taking your Motorola Droid RAZR apart, or if you just want to see the rest of what’s inside, head over to iFixit for the full teardown.

Good news, Samsung Stratosphere owners, your phone now has root access. The good folks over at RootzWiki have posted up full instructions on rooting the device. Like many other Samsung devices, the process involves flashing a custom kernel via Odin (on Windows) or Heimdall (for Mac and Linux). Then pushing the appropriate superuser binaries to the phone. Fairly straight forward procedure, just make sure you read and understand all the instructions before you begin. Hit the source link for downloads and instructions.

[RootzWiki]

The HTC Amaze 4G was only released by T-Mobile last week, and we already have one click permanent root available. After some initial hiccups with the temp rooting process and the risk of bricking your phone, there’s now a fully working root solution. The permanent root will only be permanent if you have an unlocked bootloader, otherwise it’s just temp till the device is rebooted. For information about unlocking the Amaze bootloader, read this thread on XDA Developers. Here’s how to root your Amaze:

• Download the correct drivers from here and install.
• Download the one-click package for Windows or Mac OS X

So you just got a shiny new Samsung Galaxy S II from T-Mobile and you want root access? Perhaps you want to uninstall some of the massive amounts of bloatware that came pre-loaded. Thanks to slayher and RootzWiki, we now have a how-to guide for rooting. The process involves using the Odin tool to flash Clockwork Recovery to your phone, then from there you flash a package with the superuser files and you have root access. Disclaimer: The Android Site and RootWiki take no responsibility for anything you do to your phone. Make sure you read and understand all the instructions. Also you’re likely voiding your warranty. Shall we get started?

First Things you need:
1. ODIN V1.8.4 or greater. (Google it)
2. The correct drivers for windows (Samsung Kies – Google It)
3. This file CWR ODIN for T-989 recovery-cmw-hercules.tar
md5sum – 8bf6802a84d85aa7da0c1976c0f129d1
(yes I know its cmw versus cwm)
4. Superuser.apk and su from here
5. Guts/Balls

And here we go:
1. Make sure windows recognizes your phone in ODIN.
—- adb reboot download
-or- Turn phone of, and hold both Vol up + Vol down, and plug the USB cable in.
2. Select the PDA button and browse to the recovery-cwm-hercules.tar
3. Select Start
4. It should flash the file to Recovery and reboot the phone.
5. After it has rebooted, mount USB storage and copy the Superuser zip to the sdcard
6 Reboot into recovery
— adb reboot recovery
-or- Power off phone, unplug USB, Hold Both Vol up + Vol down and Hit power
7. Select Install zip from sdcard, choose the superuser zip and let it finish.
8. Reboot!

Success? Problems? Let us know in the comments how it worked out for you.

[via RootzWiki]