Motorola has taken the wraps off the Signature 27, its new flagship phone, with a headline combination that is hard to ignore: a 7,000mAh battery, a 200MP periscope camera and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chip, in a design noticeably thicker and heavier than the phone it replaces. The handset will cost from $1,599 when it goes on sale in Europe, the Middle East and Africa on November 16, with wider availability in other markets afterwards.
The Signature 27 follows the original Motorola Signature, and the changes tell a clear story about what Motorola thinks flagship buyers want most. The battery is 35 percent larger, the screen uses a new tandem panel, and the camera system gains a dedicated sensor built purely for moving subjects. It is a phone that leans hard into endurance and photography, even if that means a bigger, weightier body.
Design and Display
The Signature 27 is built around a 6.78-inch Extreme AMOLED Duo display with 1.5K resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate and peak brightness of up to 12,000 nits, measured at a 1 percent average pixel level. The panel uses a tandem AMOLED design, which stacks two light-emitting layers on top of each other. Motorola says that makes the screen up to 34 percent more energy efficient than the previous model’s display and extends its lifespan by as much as 121 percent.
The body combines an aluminium frame with ceramic and glass, and the screen is protected by Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3. Motorola has also given the phone IP68 and IP69 dust and water resistance ratings, along with MIL-STD-810H durability certification. The trade-off is size: at 162.01 by 77.04 by 7.99 millimetres and 227 grams, it is thicker and heavier than the original Signature, at 7 millimetres and 186 grams.
Buyers will have two Pantone colours to choose from: Coal Smoke with a tactical weave finish, and Capulet Olive with a textile-inspired finish.
Internals and Software
Under the hood, the Signature 27 runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, a 2-nanometre chip with an octa-core Oryon processor running at up to 5.0GHz and an Adreno 850 graphics processor. It is paired with either 12GB or 16GB of LPDDR5X memory and 256GB or 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage, and there is no card slot, so buyers will need to choose their capacity carefully at the time of purchase.
Keeping that hardware cool is a new ArcticMesh system that combines micro-diamond-infused thermal gel with a vapour chamber measuring 8,384 square millimetres, 40 percent larger than the one in the previous generation. Sustained performance matters on modern flagships, which are expected to handle long gaming sessions and heavy camera use without slowing down.
The phone ships with Android 17, and Motorola is promising seven major Android updates along with up to seven years of security updates, among the longest software support commitments in the industry. It also includes Motorola’s Qira AI assistant and support for Google’s upcoming Gemini Intelligence features as they become available. Other details include stereo speakers tuned by Bang and Olufsen with Dolby Atmos, Wi-Fi 8 compatibility and a six-antenna design. Motorola has also announced that the Signature 27 will be its first smartphone to support GrapheneOS, a privacy-focused operating system developed with the GrapheneOS Foundation.
Cameras
The camera system is where Motorola has made its boldest moves. The rear setup is led by a 50MP Sony LYTIA L910 main sensor with an f/1.6 aperture, optical image stabilisation and LOFIC technology, which is designed to improve dynamic range in difficult lighting. Next to it sits a 200MP periscope telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom and up to 100x AI-assisted Super Zoom Pro, while the third camera is a 50MP ultrawide sensor with autofocus and a 122-degree field of view.
Motorola has also added what it describes as the first dedicated Event Vision Sensor in a smartphone. Unlike a conventional sensor, it detects pixel-level changes in light intensity to capture motion information, and it works with the phone’s Action Shot feature to improve photographs of fast-moving subjects. The rear cameras can record 8K video at 30 frames per second and 4K video at up to 120 frames per second with Dolby Vision, while the 50MP autofocus front camera can record 4K video.
Battery and Pricing
The 7,000mAh silicon-carbon battery is the other headline feature, 35 percent larger than the capacity of the original Signature. It supports 90W wired charging, 50W wireless charging, 5W reverse wireless charging and 4.5W reverse wired charging, so it can also top up accessories such as earbuds. Motorola claims its 90W charging system can deliver up to 12 hours of battery life in just 12 minutes under specified testing conditions.
The Signature 27 carries a recommended starting price of $1,599, which places it firmly among the most expensive Android flagships on the market. For that money, Motorola is offering a phone that promises days of battery life, a serious zoom camera and seven years of software support. Whether it tempts buyers away from better-established rivals will become clearer once it reaches shops on November 16.
