The Motorola Signature makes its entrance into the market, positioning itself as a top-tier device, effectively inaugurating a brand-new product line for the manufacturer that presents itself to an audience seeking premium solutions.
The device slots into an extremely complex segment, with a high price and that places it in direct competition with the best smartphones on the market.
The real question now is: can the Motorola Signature keep up with the competition? Is its target audience the right one?
The technical specs of the Motorola Signature list a length of 162.1 mm, a width of 76.4 mm, and a surprisingly slender thickness of only 6.99 mm.
The overall weight of the device stops at 186 g, a remarkable result considering the large front panel area and the fact that we are used to seeing premium devices in this class easily surpassing 200 g.
These dimensions make it a smartphone particularly pleasant to use for extended periods. It may sound obvious, but first impressions count a lot, and Signature appealed to me right away precisely because it is light and slim.
Even given a very compelling spec sheet, I was surprised at how much these few grams really make a difference.
The chassis of the Motorola Signature is constructed with a brushed aluminum frame, a material that provides excellent rigidity to the device while keeping weight down.
The rear camera module is housed within a metal island positioned in the top-left corner, with beveled edges that gradually blend with the surrounding surface, echoing design cues already seen on other Edge devices but applied here with materials of different origin.
Looking at it, there is no doubt: it is 100% a Motorola smartphone. The company has developed a coherent visual identity across its range, something to be appreciated, not like other brands that constantly redesign the entire lineup every few months.
Beyond aesthetics, the protection factor plays a primary role. The smartphone chassis is sealed to achieve dual IP68 and IP69 certifications, which attest to good protection against dust ingress and the ability to withstand immersion in liquids up to 1.2 meters for 30 minutes, as well as resistance to high-pressure and high-temperature water jets.
This level of sealing is complemented by the military-grade MIL-STD-810H certification, guaranteeing it has passed stringent tests related to accidental shocks, drops to the ground, extreme pressure variations, high humidity, and sudden thermal shocks.
The front surface of the device is dominated by a large display. It is a LTPO AMOLED panel with a 6.8-inch diagonal capable of producing over 1 billion color shades (10-bit).
Resolution stands at 1,264 x 2,780 pixels, yielding a density of 446 ppi, with extremely sharp text edges and highly defined images in every context. To protect the display we have Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2, chosen for its excellent scratch and impact tolerance.
The refresh rate control ensures the smartphone can dynamically adjust its display refresh rate according to momentary needs, from a minimum of 1 Hz when the on-screen images are completely static, to a peak of 165 Hz.
The OS-level management software offers several configurations, including a mode that adjusts the frequency up to 120 Hz, and an exclusive feature within the Gametime app that allows unlocking the highest frequency to support specific games without frame-rate caps.
Motorola indicates a theoretical peak brightness of 6200 nits for the Signature display, an extreme value used solely to trigger localized illumination on small portions of the screen during HDR video playback.
During more realistic tests, the ambient light sensor, operating in automatic mode, pushed the panel to deliver around 1500 nits on predominantly white backgrounds. This sustained brightness proves absolutely adequate to guarantee excellent visibility even under direct sunlight.
The panel is also fully certified for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, with hardware decoding of dynamic metadata to enhance bright regions without washing out details in shadowed areas.
The panel’s geometry remains flat across virtually the entire usable surface, curving only near the edges. This glass shaping avoids the typical issues of chromatic distortion or accidental edge pressure common with very curved panels, while also delivering significantly smoother lateral scrolling for the user’s fingers.
Personally I’m a fan of curved displays, but if we must return to flat screens, I find this way of “smoothed” glass extremely pleasant. To all manufacturers who, in imitation of the iPhone, have removed any glass curvature: take note (or reconsider).
Integrated below the display is the under-display fingerprint reader, which relies on ultrasonic technology. Compared to traditional optical sensors, the ultrasonic module offers greater resistance to skin moisture or impurities, remaining consistently fast and inherently harder to fool. Motorola aligns with the other top Android flagships of recent years.
Regarding sound, Signature relies on stereo speakers placed symmetrically and tuned in collaboration with Bose. The audio supports Dolby Atmos metadata, delivering a broad soundstage, plus support for high-resolution protocols guaranteed by the Qualcomm Snapdragon Sound suite.
The internal architecture and technical specifications of the Motorola Signature reflect the manufacturer’s precise intent to offer a highly performing device, albeit with some caveats.
Overall operation is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 hardware platform, built on a 3 nm process. The CPU in this SoC is an octa-core, where the high-performance cores can reach a maximum operating frequency of 3.8 GHz, while the graphics part is handled by the Adreno 829 GPU.
From a purely technical standpoint, the choice to implement the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 and not the ultrahigh-end Elite variant warrants a deeper look. While the Elite variant can reach up to 4.61 GHz on the main cores and has 18 MB of high-performance memory for graphics, the Signature’s processor uses lower frequencies and a standard graphics memory configuration.
Although shots taken with the Motorola Signature are of excellent quality, they still don’t compete with the top cameraphones. Ultra and Pro Max still have an edge, but finally the company seems on the right path toward success.
Even here, as with the processor, to kick off a new premium product line I would have dared a little more. That said, in my view the right compromises were made to offer users cameras that are incredibly capable without unduly increasing the device’s thickness and weight.
The preinstalled software at arrival is Android 16. The company guarantees full system updates for a continuous period of 7 years, ensuring support for new software versions and security patches until 2032.
The user interface is customized through the proprietary skin Hello UI. The Moto app collects the brand’s classic options, including the famous gestures such as quick camera launch or flashlight activation. The Smart Connect app allows you to sync the device with computers and external displays both via cable and wirelessly.
The system is generally very pleasant and well organized but far from the simplicity that once defined the brand’s devices. Pre-installed third-party apps at first boot may be excessive, and the ongoing push to install additional bloatware does not suit a product aimed at a discerning audience.
Also the simple fact that the integrated Weather app is full of ads should not be acceptable for a device listed above 1,000 euros.
Sure, with proper configurations and manual removal of the “extras” you get a pleasant-to-use smartphone with not too much digital clutter, but someone spending these sums might expect a less suffocating out-of-the-box experience. Dear Motorola, I’m speaking as someone who genuinely liked this Signature: if you want to compete with iPhone’s experience you need to fix this.
The smartphone natively supports Gemini by Google. On top of this sits the proprietary AI system, which can be evoked by pressing the dedicated physical button placed on the device’s left edge.
Moto AI offers automated procedures: Catch Me Up condenses the text present in unread notifications into a textual summary; Pay Attention records audio for transcription and synthesis; Image Studio lets you create graphic content via textual directives.
The AI management also provides access to external platforms such as Microsoft’s Copilot and Perplexity for information retrieval. In practice, aside from Chat GPT, if you want an AI assistant you’ll find it pre-installed, like it or not.
The fact that there is a choice is commendable, but the environment is perhaps becoming a little too crowded with agents that overlap in many of their capabilities.
The Motorola Signature has been priced with a recommended retail price of 1,299 euros for the single configuration available, featuring 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage.
The smartphone is exceptional for its current street price, but at the full list price it’s a bit hard to justify. In my view, Motorola made the mistake of bringing the most capable and expensive variant to Italy, targeting a distinctly luxurious market.
If this Signature had been fully equipped, perhaps with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and Ultra cameras, its positioning as Motorola’s premium flagship would have made more sense. Paired with so-called flagship-killer specs, at full price it is too expensive for what it offers.
Let’s pretend for a moment that this device is named “Motorola Edge 70 Pro+” or “Edge 70 Ultra” and that its list price is the one it’s currently sold at, i.e. under 900 euros. Then it suddenly becomes incredibly interesting and appealing.
We are looking at a truly beautiful product, 360° balanced, capable of delivering satisfaction. I liked it a lot and its only flaw is being positioned by Motorola in the wrong way. It was time to return to the premium flagship market to put pressure on Samsung, Google, and Apple (especially in the USA where Chinese competition is lacking) but this wasn’t the right product for that purpose.
Nevertheless, taken for what it is — a smartphone with an excellent quality/price ratio — and apart from marketing talk, Motorola Signature is by no means to be underestimated!
Attention: to obtain the MediaWorld discount and pay Motorola Signature 899,00 euros you need to join the free loyalty program MediaWorld Club.
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