A luxury product is a desirable one. So when Motorola introduces the Signature as its luxury flagship priced similarly to an iPhone 17 Pro or Galaxy S25 Plus, the question is will it be as desirable as those heavy hitters?
The basics
Judging by the spec sheet, Motorola’s Signature sounds more than capable enough to be considered a pure flagship specimen.It comes with a 6.8-inch display that’s smooth and gorgeous, with high levels of contrast and accurate color reproduction thanks to its OLED panel. Moreover, it also has super-thin uniform bezels.
More impressively, Motorola has managed to fit a 5,200 mAh silicon-carbon battery inside a body that’s just 7 mm thin. For comparison, the iPhone 17 Pro is 8.8 mm thick, while the Galaxy S26 Plus is 7.3 mm.
Pairing up nicely with the large battery is fast wired charging at up to 90 W and 50 W of wireless charging.
Motorola has also thrown in an IP69 certification for water resistance on top of IP68. What’s more, for the first time ever on a Motorola smartphone, the Signature comes with seven years of Android updates!
The cameras sound promising, but history forces me to stay cautious.
I don’t have high hopes for the Signature’s camera performance. | Image by Motorola
The triple 50 MP setup led by Sony’s LYT-828 sensor is a capable one. A 1/1.28-inch main sensor gives Motorola plenty of opportunity to shine and finally match other major players. That said, so far the company has always been shy at best when compared to Samsung, Google, or Apple as far as camera performance goes.
Flagship price but without the latest silicon. | Image by Motorola
The one downside is that the phone comes with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 instead of the more powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, but even with that downside the Signature easily fits into flagship territory.
The Signature’s branding is not on point
I can’t call it a luxury product. | Image by Motorola
Motorola is known to lean heavily on materials and color to justify its place in the market.
For the signature, that is in the form of Pantone Olive and Pantone Carbon finishes, with textured twill-inspired backs. I already mentioned the slim body, which has also been a staple for Motorola phones, and just like those other models, the overall design is elegant and understated.
But that is precisely my problem with the Signature. It feels a bit too familiar. It does not radically separate itself from Motorola’s Edge series.
If you removed the whole branding around it, the Signature would not immediately register as a model that’s fundamentally above the rest of Motorola’s lineup.
Luxury products usually create some kind of visual hierarchy and distinction, but this one does not.
So why does the Signature exist?
I initially thought that Motorola was trying to target Galaxy Ultra fans, but even with its impressive spec sheet, the Signature can’t realistically challenge Samsung (and I think Motorola knows this).It is not even for spec maximalists who demand the absolute highest performance.
The Signature seems like an experiment to me. Motorola is testing the waters to see what kind of interest it can garner from a better-specced and more premium device.
Motorola has spent years rebuilding relevance with the Edge and Razr lines, which has given it the necessary confidence and recognition to afford such experiments. The Signature feels like a probe into a higher margin bracket. A way to test how much goodwill the brand has accumulated.
This would also explain the very familiar design. By sticking to the usual Motorola look, the company can leverage the image it’s built over the last few years.
Also, we have to consider the cautious regional rollout, which to me only solidifies the Signature as a test.
So, who is the Signature for? I’m not sure even Motorola knows the answer to that question yet, and finding the answer is the whole point of releasing it in the first place. I only wish that Motorola did a better job at naming and branding its phones, as that often makes things confusing.