Motorola Signature 27: price, specs and release date

Motorola has put a price on its most ambitious phone in years. The Motorola Signature 27, first teased at Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit in September, is now official at $1,599.99 in the US, with a 12,000-nit display, a 7,000mAh battery, a 200MP zoom camera and support for the privacy-focused GrapheneOS.

That price puts a phone that doesn't fold above most of the big-name flagships. Here is what the Signature 27 costs, when you can buy it, the full specs, and the new Moto Watch Fit 27 and Moto Buds Ultra 27 announced alongside it.

Top photo: the Motorola Signature 27 in Pantone Coal Smoke, with its ceramic and aluminium camera plate. (Image: Motorola)

Motorola Signature 27 price and release date

In the US, the Signature 27 comes in one configuration, 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, for $1,599.99. PhoneArena and Android Headlines report that pre-orders open on November 19 at Motorola.com, Amazon and Best Buy, with sales starting on November 26. XDA Developers also gives November 26 as the on-sale date. US units are sold unlocked, and no US carriers have been announced.

9to5Google reports a limited-time pre-order offer on Motorola.com in the US: a free Moto Watch Ultra and a free year of Motorola's motocare extended warranty. Android Headlines says there is no availability in Canada for now.

In the UK, TechRadar lists the price at £1,299.99, with shipping in Europe from November 16. Motorola's own press release says the phone will reach markets worldwide in the coming months from a starting price of $1,599, and points buyers to local Motorola teams for regional pricing.

For context, PhoneArena notes that the US price is higher than the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and the iPhone 18 Pro Max. The original Motorola Signature launched in Europe in January 2026 at €999, so this is a big jump.

Display: up to 12,000 nits

The Signature 27 has a 6.8-inch Extreme AMOLED Duo screen. It is a tandem OLED panel, meaning it stacks two light-emitting layers to get more brightness and efficiency. Motorola rates it at up to 12,000 nits peak brightness and calls it the brightest display available in a smartphone. PhoneArena notes that peak figure is measured on 1% of the screen, so real-world full-screen brightness will be lower.

The panel runs at up to 120Hz with Dolby Vision and HDR10+ support. 9to5Google lists the resolution as 2772 x 1272, which Motorola calls 1.5K. Motorola claims up to 34% better energy efficiency and up to 121% longer lifespan than traditional AMOLED panels. Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3 covers the front.

Cameras: 200MP zoom and an action sensor

Motorola says this is its best camera system yet, and it carries a DXOMARK Gold Label. The setup includes:

A 50MP Sony LYTIA L910 main camera with optical image stabilisation. A 200MP periscope telephoto with 3x optical zoom and AI-assisted 100x Super Zoom. A 50MP ultrawide, which Motorola notes outputs 12.5MP photos by combining pixels. A 50MP front camera that records 4K video.

The unusual addition is what Motorola calls the first dedicated EVS action sensor on a smartphone. An event vision sensor only detects changes in light at each pixel, so it tracks movement very quickly. Motorola uses it with an Action Shot mode to freeze fast-moving subjects more sharply.

Performance, battery and charging

Inside is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, the company's fastest phone chip, with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage. A new cooling system Motorola calls ArcticMesh uses a diamond-infused thermal gel and a vapour chamber 40% larger than the previous model's.

The battery is a 7,000mAh silicon-carbon cell, 35% bigger than the 5,200mAh pack in the original Signature. It supports 90W wired charging, which Motorola says gives up to 12 hours of use from a 12-minute charge with its separately sold charger, and 50W wireless charging. There is also 5W wireless and 4.5W wired reverse charging for topping up earbuds or a watch.

GrapheneOS support, AI and software

The Signature 27 ships with Android 17, and Motorola promises seven Android version upgrades and up to seven years of security updates. It is also Motorola's first phone to support GrapheneOS, a hardened, open-source version of Android focused on privacy and security. Motorola says it developed the support with the GrapheneOS Foundation and that the phone is its first with a full implementation of ARM Memory Tagging Extension, a hardware feature that helps block memory-based attacks.

On the AI side, the phone is designed for Google's Gemini Intelligence features, which can carry out multi-step tasks across apps, plus tools such as Rambler for turning speech into tidy messages, Create My Widget, and Sign-to-Text for translating American Sign Language into written English. Motorola's own Qira assistant links the phone with other Motorola and Lenovo devices. Google is rolling some of these features out over the coming months, and availability varies by country.

Design, audio and durability

The phone measures 162.01 x 77.04 x 7.99mm and weighs 227g, according to 9to5Google. It has an aluminium frame and comes in two colours: Pantone Coal Smoke with a woven-look finish, and Pantone Capulet Olive with a textile-inspired finish. It is rated IP68 and IP69 for dust and water and tested against the MIL-STD-810H military durability standard.

Motorola says it is the only phone on sale with Audio by Bang & Olufsen tuning, using new stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos. Wi-Fi 8 compatibility and a six-antenna design round it out.

Moto Watch Fit 27 and Moto Buds Ultra 27

Motorola also announced two accessories, though neither has a price or release date yet. Motorola says the Moto Buds Ultra 27 will reach the US in the coming months.

The Moto Watch Fit 27 is a square fitness watch that runs Motorola's own software rather than Wear OS. It has a 1.85-inch 390 x 450 OLED screen at up to 1,500 nits, Polar-powered heart rate, sleep and recovery tracking, SpO2, dual-frequency GPS, more than 100 workout modes, IP68 and 5ATM water resistance, and a 400mAh battery Motorola rates at up to 12 days with always-on display off. It weighs 28.1g.

The Moto Buds Ultra 27 earbuds have Bose SoundDesign tuning and Bose QuietControl noise cancelling, an 11mm dynamic driver plus a balanced armature in each bud, three microphones per bud, AI Live Translate, head gestures, IP57 protection and up to 8 hours of playback, or 37 hours with the case.

Should you wait for reviews?

On paper, the Signature 27 is one of the most complete Android flagships of the year: the brightest screen claim, a very large battery, a 200MP zoom camera and seven years of updates. GrapheneOS support also makes it the first mainstream non-Pixel phone that privacy-focused buyers can consider.

But $1,599.99 is a lot for a phone that doesn't fold, and Motorola's camera and brightness claims have not yet been tested independently. With pre-orders opening on November 19, reviews should land before or around launch, so it is worth waiting for them before committing.