Motorola launches $1,600 Signature 27 flagship with high-end specs

Motorola announced the Signature 27, its first ultra-premium candy-bar phone in the United States in six years, with pre-orders beginning on November 19 and sales starting November 26. The device is built with a ceramic and brushed-aluminum chassis, Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3 front cover and an IP68/69 dust-and-water rating.

The 6.8-inch "Extreme AMOLED Duo" panel is marketed as the brightest smartphone display, reaching a peak brightness of 12,000 nits through a tandem OLED construction. Motorola says the screen offers better energy efficiency, a 121 % longer lifespan than typical AMOLED panels, 1.5K resolution, Dolby Vision support and Pantone-validated color accuracy.

Camera hardware includes a 50-megapixel Sony Lytia L910 main sensor with LOFIC technology, a 200-megapixel periscope telephoto lens with 3× optical zoom and up to 100× digital zoom, a 50-megapixel ultrawide lens and a 50-megapixel front-facing camera. A dedicated Event-Based Vision Sensor (EVS) is used for the Action Shot mode that aims to eliminate motion blur.

Powering the handset is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 processor, paired with 12 GB of RAM, 512 GB of storage, a 7,000-mAh silicon-carbon battery and 90-watt TurboPower fast charging. The phone also supports Wi-Fi 8, a 7-year software-update commitment and optional GrapheneOS for enhanced privacy.

Motorola partnered with Bang & Olufsen for the speaker system and integrated several Google Gemini Intelligence features, such as AI-driven task handling, generative-AI widgets and real-time sign-language translation.

"Historically for Motorola, higher pricing has been tied to the foldable form factor, but we wanted to offer that set of consumers seeking the highest-quality smartphone where no technical specification has been overlooked," said Nicole Hagen, head of global product marketing.

"The average consumer—even the premium consumer—is not seeing which phone wins on a spec sheet. Regardless of how great this phone is, it's going to be quite hard for Motorola to compete," said Nabila Popal, senior research director at IDC.

Motorola reported a 15 % year-over-year revenue increase in the second quarter of 2026, with a third of the growth coming from its premium segment. The company’s folding phones currently hold a dominant share of the U.S. folding-phone market, though analysts note the challenge of gaining traction against Apple and Samsung in the broader premium smartphone space.