Motorola has given reporters early hands-on time with the Signature 27, its most expensive phone yet, ahead of a US launch priced at $1,599 and a UK launch at £1,299.
Key points
- The Motorola Signature 27 starts at $1,599 in the US and £1,299 in the UK.
- It runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chipset with Android 17.
- The phone features a 6.8-inch Tandem OLED display capable of 12,000 nits peak brightness.
- A 7,000mAh silicon-carbon battery supports 90W wired and 50W wireless charging.
- This marks the first Motorola Signature model sold directly in the United States.
The device marks a sharp pivot for Motorola, which has spent years chasing the mid-range while leaving flagship territory to Samsung, Google and Apple. With the Signature 27, the company is explicitly aiming at the same buyers those brands compete for, and for the first time, American customers can purchase a Signature model directly rather than importing one.
A Design That Splits Opinion but Holds Up in Hand
The phone’s camera module, a wide metal-and-ceramic bar spanning the back, drew criticism when Motorola revealed the design in September. In person, reviewers who spent time with the device at a launch event in Tromso, Norway, described it as striking rather than awkward, with a grooved aluminum frame, chamfered edges and a curved 2.5D display that recalls earlier design-forward phones like the Sony Xperia Pro-I.
Motorola is offering the phone in two finishes: Cool Smoke, with a textured “tactical weave” back, and Pantone Capulet Olive, which has a warmer tone and feel. The device weighs 227 grams, heavier than last year’s original Motorola Signature, and uses an aluminum frame with Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3 on front and back. It carries IP68 and IP69 ratings for dust and water resistance.
Camera Hardware Built Around a New Motion Sensor
Motorola’s camera ambitions center on a 50-megapixel Sony Lytia 910 main sensor with optical image stabilization and an f/1.6 aperture, paired with LOFIC technology designed to widen dynamic range in high-contrast scenes. A 200-megapixel periscope telephoto camera supports up to 100x digital zoom, though early testing suggests image quality holds up well only through roughly 30x before noise becomes noticeable. A 50-megapixel ultra-wide and 50-megapixel front camera round out the array.
The more unusual addition is a dedicated Event Vision Sensor, a chip built specifically to track motion. Motorola says it works alongside the main and telephoto cameras to sharpen images of moving subjects, particularly in low light. The claim has not yet been independently verified through full testing. The phone has also posted a DxOMark score of 173, among the highest recorded in 2026, according to the testing firm.
Display, Battery and a Flagship Chipset
The Signature 27 uses a 6.8-inch Extreme AMOLED Duo display, Motorola’s branding for a Tandem OLED panel with two stacked light-emitting layers, a technology also used in Apple’s latest MacBook Pro. Motorola rates peak brightness at 12,000 nits, which the company says is the highest ever recorded on a phone screen, though real-world testing under typical indoor and outdoor lighting has not shown an unusual level of glare.
Power comes from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, the same chipset expected to appear later in Samsung’s Galaxy S27 Ultra. Motorola is pairing it with ArcticMesh cooling, a diamond-infused thermal gel combined with a vapor chamber 40 percent larger than last year’s model. The battery grows to 7,000mAh, up from 5,200mAh in the original Signature, using silicon-carbon cell chemistry. Charging tops out at 90W wired and 50W wireless, with Motorola claiming roughly 12 hours of use from a 12-minute charge, though the charger itself is sold separately.
- Display: 6.8-inch Tandem OLED, 12,000-nit peak brightness
- Chipset: Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, Android 17
- Battery: 7,000mAh silicon-carbon cell, 90W wired/50W wireless charging
- Cameras: 50MP main (Sony Lytia 910), 200MP periscope telephoto, 50MP ultra-wide, 50MP front, plus Event Vision Sensor
- Build: aluminum frame, Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3, IP68/IP69
- Audio: speakers co-developed with Bang & Olufsen
Pricing, Release Dates and What Comes Next
Audio also got attention from Motorola, which worked with Bang & Olufsen engineers on multiple sound profiles tailored to music, film, gaming and podcasts, along with a manual equalizer for bass and treble adjustments. Motorola says the speaker hardware itself remains limited by the phone’s small size, but testers found the output clear across profiles.
In the UK, the Signature 27 enters pre-order on November 16, with Motorola citing a release date of December 3 and a starting price of £1,299, according to the company’s hands-on review coverage. In the US, pre-orders begin November 19 ahead of a November 26 release, priced at $1,599.99 for the only configuration offered: 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Motorola has said there is no availability in Canada at this time. The company is also offering seven years of OS and security updates, matching the support window offered by Samsung, Google and Honor.
That price marks a jump from the original Motorola Signature, which launched at £899.99. Motorola is positioning the Signature 27 against other high-end phones expected around the same price point in late 2026, including the Oppo Find X10 Pro Max and the rumored Xiaomi 18 Pro Max, both expected near £1,500.
