Technology

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With the Motorola Signature 27, the manufacturer pushes its lineup to new heights in terms of features. It is also the company’s first smartphone, alongside Google’s Pixel models, to support the custom ROM GrapheneOS. But buyers will have to dig deep for the device: at €1,900, it costs about €300 more than an iPhone 18 Pro Max and €100 more than an Oppo Find X10 Pro Max.

AMOLED duo display

For its hefty price, which may also be due to the memory crisis, the Signature 27 has a lot to offer. It features a 6.78-inch AMOLED duo display, which stacks two OLED panels on top of each other, much like Apple’s iPad Pro and the new MacBook Pro. This is supposed to improve light output and make the display shine up to twice as brightly as a single OLED panel. Another purported benefit of this arrangement is lower power consumption at lower brightness.

Motorola says it offers 34% greater energy efficiency and a lifespan up to 121% longer than conventional OLEDs. Tandem or duo OLED displays are not an Apple invention; display technology companies have been working on them for years. Honor was the first manufacturer to put such a display in a phone, its flagship Magic6 RSR Porsche Design. Honor also charged around €1,900 for it.

The 120-Hz screen is also said to deliver a peak brightness of 12,000 cd/m², a level not previously reached. For comparison, Oppo’s current Find X10 Pro Max peaks at 3,600 cd/m². We’ll see how the exceptionally high brightness in specific areas affects everyday use.

Smaller battery in Germany

The new Motorola flagship also packs Qualcomm’s latest top-tier chip, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, which the chipmaker unveiled in late September. That makes it one of the first smartphones with the latest chip, though Xiaomi and other manufacturers will also introduce their models for the global market soon. The system-on-a-chip (SoC) is paired with 12 GB of LPDDR5X RAM, or optionally 16 GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and 256 or 512 GB of UFS 4.1 flash storage.

The battery in the new Signature 27, which uses silicon-carbon anodes, has a capacity of 7,000 mAh in most parts of the world — but only 5,500 mAh in Germany (rated capacity: 5,350 mAh) — and supports wired charging at up to 90 watts with a suitable power adapter. Wireless charging is available at up to 50 Watts, while the phone supports reverse wireless charging at up to 5 Watts. The manufacturer has not given a reason for the battery’s massive reduction.

The Signature 27 is also the manufacturer’s first model developed in collaboration with audio experts Bang & Olufsen. The company says, “Special sound modes and an entirely new speaker architecture are designed to preserve the original sound character of recordings.” A review will show how good the devices sound.

Four camera sensors on the back

The phone has four camera sensors on the back. The periscope telephoto camera has a 200-megapixel sensor, while the wide-angle camera and the ultrawide-angle camera each have a 50-megapixel sensor. The wide-angle camera uses Sony’s LOFIC-capable Lytia-L910 sensor, which is also found in Vivo’s X500 Pro Max, for example. LOFIC is designed, among other things, to prevent bright areas of an image from becoming overexposed. Sony also says it reduces image noise in low-light conditions and captures scenes with high contrast using smooth gradations.

The fourth sensor on the back is an EVS action sensor — the first in a smartphone, according to the manufacturer. The sensor offers “new possibilities for photographing moving subjects and captures even fast movement with impressive clarity and precision,” Motorola says. When used with the Action Shot feature, the sensor freezes motion and makes “optimal use of available light.” The front camera has a 50-megapixel sensor.

Android 17 and GrapheneOS support

On the software side, the Signature 27 comes with Android 17 preinstalled, along with the usual Google services, Gemini, and Gemini Intelligence. Motorola says it also includes the new Rambler voice dictation feature, which Google introduced with the Pixel 11 series. It also includes “Create My Widget,” a feature that lets users create widgets to their specifications. The feature is also available, for example, on the Android-based Googlebooks; it is not yet available on Android smartphones.

The phone also supports “Motorola Qira.” This AI platform is designed to help compatible Motorola and Lenovo devices work better together. Like the first Signature model, it is set to receive seven years of Android updates and security patches, which is still rare for Motorola. This commitment also meets the requirements of software partner GrapheneOS.

The two sides announced their partnership on the Google-free-by-default, security-focused custom ROM GrapheneOS at MWC earlier this year. Motorola says it worked with the GrapheneOS Foundation to develop the integration of the custom ROM’s security requirements. The goal of the collaboration is to “make cutting-edge security technologies accessible to smartphone users around the world.” Motorola has not said when GrapheneOS will be available for the device; the custom ROM’s developers have so far consistently pointed to 2027.

In March, Motorola said it wanted to redefine smartphone security with GrapheneOS. With the custom ROM, devices running GrapheneOS receive a “reinforced security core” and “protection against sophisticated threats.” It also puts “privacy first.” The manufacturer also promised that GrapheneOS would give users better control over their data and let them more precisely choose which data leaves the device.

The Motorola Signature 27 is expected to go on sale in Germany over the coming weeks for €1,899.