Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 gets rooted.. sort of.

Alright, everyone — it’s that time again! It’s time for yet another weekly installment of “Good news, bad news”! Hurraaaay!

The Good News: The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 has been rooted, granting hackers full access to the file system and the ability to install custom ROMs.

The Bad News: In its current state, this root is by no means user-friendly. Unlike many a root, this one isn’t a matter of plopping a few files on an SD card and pushing in the right key strokes; these guys had to dig some serious trenches to get this root in place, requiring dedicated a hardware flashing tool (called the SETool) and a big ol’ bucket of elbow grease.

On the upside, there’s a chance that this all could lead to a less-ridiculously-intense process, given that the folks responsible for this one are hard at work on taking what they’ve learned and building up an all-software solution.

If this were an 80’s movie, there would be a totally killer montage of sweaty dudes sitting over smoking soldering irons, phones exploding, and frustrated faces all leading up to a shot of an anxious group of geeks huddled around a phone as they wait for it to boot. Also, the music would be something by Survivor.