Hello Moto…. Wait, what the hell is that? My first reaction to Motorola’s next-gen flagship Signature 27 phone looks like a piece of furniture with its brushed textile finish and sloped camera bump. Gizmodo’s senior editor of consumer tech, Ray Wong, thinks it resembles a Nothing Phone 3 and a Google Pixel 11 Pro. Either way, the new phone is also the first to use Qualcomm’s most powerful processor yet, and there’s a reason you should be paying attention to that weird and wacky camera shelf.
Before we talk more about the cameras, the phone is more interesting for what’s going on inside. The Motorola Signature 27 is the first device to officially showcase the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chip that’s purpose-built for increasing the performance of on-device AI and even potentially enabling users to run mid-ranged AI coders on their phones.
This is the second-gen Motorola Signature device, though it’s now based around the yearly naming convention. It’s also our best look yet at what it will take to run Qualcomm’s next-gen chip. The phone maker said it’s making use of practically all of today’s thermal tech short of shoving in liquid cooling to keep temperatures down. The ArcticMesh apparatus includes a 3D vapor chamber alongside a copper mesh. Plus, it’s using liquid metal and a diamond-infused thermal gel to connect the heat pipes with the CPU.
Motorola did not offer any clue how much the Signature 27 will cost, though it promises to share more details as we get closer to a release later this year. This is meant to be both a style and substance kind of Android phone, especially with audio tuned by Bang & Olson.
The brand, mostly known for its Razr flip phones, didn’t share more details about the Signature 27’s camera specs from its four sensors. Motorola confirmed it has a 50-megapixel Sony LYTIA 910 main sensor and another 200-megapixel periscope telephoto lens. It will run Motorola’s Video Enhancement Engine, a color correction model that promises to offer true-to-life video quality in the day or at night.
The camera system should also feature Qualcomm’s image stabilization feature, though we’re waiting to see if it can manage that coveted 8K/60 fps and 4K/240 fps recording promised by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. Otherwise, the Signature 27 device is tuned to running AI, whether that’s a Google Gemini model or some other agentic workhorse.
Motorola is shipping two Signature 27 colors. There’s a “Pantone Capulet Green” that’s “inspired by premium fashion and interior design.” That means my furniture comparisons weren’t that far off. There’s also another “Pantone Coal Smoke in Tactical Weave,” which seems built to appeal directly to the homegrown “operator” crowd who dress up for airsoft on the weekends. Whichever option you choose, all the extra cameras and chip capabilities basically ensure this next-gen Signature phone won’t be cheap by any standards.
