Motorola Signature 27 Official: $1,599.99, 200MP Zoom, 7,000mAh

Motorola has finally put a price on its most ambitious phone yet. The Signature 27, first shown at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit in September, is now fully official — and at $1,599.99, it is the most expensive phone Motorola has ever sold. Pre-orders open in the US on November 19, with sales starting November 26.

Key specs:

Display: 6.78-inch Extreme AMOLED Duo tandem OLED, 1.5K, 120Hz, up to 12,000 nits peak brightness
Chip: Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6
RAM and storage: 12GB RAM, 512GB storage (US model)
Rear cameras: 50MP Sony Lytia 910 main, 200MP periscope telephoto, 50MP ultrawide, plus a dedicated EVS action sensor
Battery: 7,000mAh silicon-carbon, 90W wired and 50W wireless charging
Software: Android 17, with seven major OS upgrades promised
Price: $1,599.99 in the US; €1,899 in Europe

A price that puts Motorola in Ultra territory

Motorola is not easing into this price. At $1,599.99, the Signature 27 costs more than the iPhone 18 Pro Max, which starts at $1,299 — our iPhone 18 Pro Max review covers what that money buys from Apple. In the US there is just one configuration: 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, sold unlocked through Motorola.com, Amazon and Best Buy. Pre-orders open November 19 and the phone goes on sale November 26. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, sales start earlier, on November 16, at €1,899 — although Motorola says some retailers and partners in select countries will sell it for €1,399.

The camera is the headline act

The rear camera system is built around a 50MP Sony Lytia 910 main sensor with an f/1.6 aperture, optical image stabilisation and LOFIC technology for cleaner video in difficult light. The star is the 200MP periscope telephoto, offering 3x optical zoom and up to 100x with Motorola’s AI-driven Super Zoom Pro. A 50MP ultrawide and a 50MP front camera complete the set. Motorola has also added a dedicated EVS action sensor, which it says is the first of its kind on a smartphone and is designed to cut blur on fast-moving subjects. Motorola says the camera system earned a DXOMARK Gold Label with a score of 173 — a manufacturer and lab claim, not an independent review result.

A 7,000mAh battery and a 12,000-nit display

The 7,000mAh silicon-carbon battery is 35% bigger than the 5,200mAh cell in the original Signature. It supports 90W wired charging and 50W wireless charging, plus reverse charging. Motorola claims up to 77 hours of mixed use and 47 hours of video playback, and says about 12 minutes on a compatible charger restores a day’s use — the charger is sold separately. The 6.78-inch Extreme AMOLED Duo display stacks two emissive layers in one tandem OLED panel, with a 1272 x 2772 resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision and HDR10+. Motorola rates it at up to 12,000 nits of peak brightness, but that is a lab figure measured at 1% average pixel level, so full-screen brightness in everyday use will be lower.

Built tough, supported for seven years

The Signature 27 measures 162.01 x 77.04 x 7.99mm and weighs 227g, with an aluminium frame, a ceramic and glass build, Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3, IP68 and IP69 ratings and MIL-STD-810H durability testing. It comes in two Pantone finishes: Coal Smoke with a tactical weave texture, and Capulet Olive with a textile-inspired finish. Audio is tuned by Bang & Olufsen. The phone ships with Android 17, and Motorola promises seven major OS upgrades and up to seven years of security updates. Motorola also says the Signature 27 will be its first phone to support GrapheneOS, the privacy-focused Android build, developed with the GrapheneOS Foundation — but no installation date has been announced, so treat that as a roadmap item rather than a launch-day feature.

The bottom line

The Signature 27 is Motorola betting it can play at the very top of the market. The hardware, on paper, gives buyers a reason to take it seriously: the biggest battery in a Motorola flagship, a 200MP zoom camera and a screen brighter than anything else on sale. It also arrives as Samsung Galaxy S27 leaks point to another flagship built on Qualcomm’s newest silicon. Whether buyers will pay Ultra money for a Motorola is the open question — the answer starts on November 16 in Europe and November 26 in the US.