Motorola goes to the extreme with the Signature 27, but remains silent on the price
As announced, Lenovo unveiled the Motorola Edge 20 Pro on September 22 during the Snapdragon Summit, one of the first phones to feature Qualcomm’s new flagship chip. While the first Signature model from January had to make do with a slightly lower-tier chip, its successor is all about speed. Motorola is keeping the price under wraps for now.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6: What Makes It "Extreme"?
The Signature 27 is a high-end flagship, according to the spec sheet. Under the hood is a Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. Qualcomm unveiled this chip on September 22 alongside the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 during its Snapdragon Summit. The Extreme can perform more demanding AI tasks locally and also uses AI to enhance graphics while gaming. That’s a significant step up from the first Motorola Signature, which had to make do with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. To keep all that power cool, the vapor chamber (the cooling chamber that dissipates heat from the chip) is, according to Motorola, 40 percent larger than in the previous generation.
200MP telephoto lens and audio by Bang & Olufsen
The Signature 27 has four rear cameras, but Motorola has only announced two of them: a 50MP main camera with the Sony LYTIA 910 sensor and a 200MP telephoto camera with a periscope lens for zooming. Motorola has not yet disclosed what the other two cameras do. The same applies to the display, the battery, and the charging speed. For the audio, Motorola is collaborating with Bang & Olufsen, with whom it recently signed a multi-year agreement. According to the press release, the Signature 27 is the first Motorola device to feature “Audio by B&O.”
The back of the Signature 27 looks and feels premium thanks to its Pantone colors and a woven or fabric-like finish. Parent company Lenovo promises seven years of OS and security updates, matching Google, the publisher of Android.
Price and availability: still a guess
Motorola expects the Signature 27 to hit stores worldwide later this year. That’s a pretty rough estimate, if you ask us. For the Netherlands and the rest of Europe, we are expecting November or later. Motorola may need that time to think about the price; we don’t know it yet.
The standard Motorola Signature provides an initial indication. It cost €999 at launch in January, and in Finland, Motorola even raised the price to €1,300 later. It is now available starting at €804. With a faster chip, larger cooling, and B&O audio, we expect the Signature 27 to be more expensive than its predecessor’s €999. So, if you don’t necessarily need the very fastest chip, you can already opt for the first Signature.
