Motorola Signature review: Reliable performer with elegant design, feature-rich camera

It is not just fine looking phone, but also a reliable performer. Whatever the tasks are, be it gaming or high-resolution 8K video recording, it stays stable and doesn't easily get overheated that easily.

Last week, Motorola unveiled the Signature series phone. It is a new class of premium phone, a level above the Edge series, and a league below the flagship Razr foldable handsets.

It is available in three configurations-- 12GB RAM + 256GB storage, 12GB RAM + 512GB storage and 16GB RAM + 1TB storage-- with prices starting at Rs. 59,999. Here are my thoughts on the latest Android phone from Motorola

Design, build quality and display

Though the Signature series is the first of its kind phone from Motorola, it shares a lot of design elements with the Edge series, but is very refined and more visually appealing.

It has the trademark curved square-shaped camera module on the back with gold accents. The device also has a sturdy metal mid-frame around the display with a similar shiny yellowish colourway, matching the olive green-hued back panel. By the way, our unit is a PANTONE-certified Olive Green variant. The company also offers the PANTONE Carbon black model as well.

Motorola Signature.

Our review unit comes with a premium fabric-like textured finish on the rear side and a matte finish on the sides, which not only does a superb job resisting sweating fingerprint smudges but also offers good grip for the fingers to hold on to the super slim phone firmly.

The company has premium aerospace-grade aluminium, which, by the way, is 100 per cent recycled. It should be noted that, in terms of weight, 67 per cent of the metal used in the phone is repurposed. And, also, the plastic-based components inside the phone are made from recycled materials.

Super slim (6.99mm thickness & weighs 186g) Motorola Signature may look fragile, but it is built to perform reliably under harsh conditions.

Motorola Signature.

The device comes with MIL-STD-810H military durability certification and IP68/IP69 ratings; it can withstand depths of up to 1.5 metres (about 5 feet) for close to 30 minutes in water. And, it can survive in extreme conditions between freezing -30 degrees Celsius and 60 degrees Celsius in desert conditions.

The display is protected by Corning's Gorilla Glass Victus 2 and is said to be 4x better scratch-resistant than conventional smartphones.

It features a 6.8-inch Extreme AMOLED with 4K Super HD (3840x2160p) resolution, with a 165Hz refresh rate, offering up to 6,200 nits peak brightness and Dolby Vision.

Motorola Signature.

Motorola Signature's display is great for multimedia consumption in all light conditions, even outdoors, but only in shade. It doesn't come with any anti-reflective coating on the display. So, the user has to take the phone's screen a little closer to the face when outside under direct sunlight.

It also comes with dual stereo speakers tuned by the Bose sound system, support for Dolby Atmos, Hi-Res Audio, Snapdragon Sound, and features dual-SIM slots and an in-display fingerprint sensor. The latter works really smoothly with a lower false rejection rate.

The device also features a dedicated Moto AI key on the left side at the top. User has to long-press it to summon the digital assistant.

Motorola Signature.

Performance

The phone is packed with Qualcomm's reliable processor and heat dissipation system to ensure it remains stable and does not easily get warmed up when doing any heavy-duty tasks, such as playing graphics-intensive games indoors or recording 8K videos for long sessions.

Inside, it houses a 3nm class Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 octa-core processor, which can clock an impressive CPU speed of 3.8Ghz. It also comes integrated with a massive 6,002 mm² vapour chamber Copper mesh liquid metal cooling system, up to 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and up to 1TB (UFS 4.1) storage, supports 24-band 5G, and Wi-Fi 7.

It runs Android 16-based Hello UI. Though it has third-party apps, there is more than sufficient memory to install hundreds of new applications, store thousands of images and videos captured with the camera.

Motorola Signature.

The device is available in three configurations-- 12GB RAM + 256GB storage, 12GB RAM + 512GB storage and 16GB RAM + 1TB storage.

is guaranteed to get seven years of Android OS updates and security patches up to 2032. It also supports generative Artificial Intelligence features (gen AI) such as Moto AI, image recognition, voice assistance, power optimisation and AI Language translation (for now, it supports German, French, Italian, Polish, Romanian, and Japanese).

Also, the Motorola Signature customers get free access to Perplexity Pro subscription for six months.

The device comes packed with a 5,200mAh silicon-carbon battery. With a full charge, it can easily last a whole day under normal usage.

Motorola Signature.

It supports 90W TurboPower fast charging. From zero, it can reach 50 per cent in under 15 minutes and hit the 100 per cent mark around 40 minutes.

It also comes with 50W wireless charging capability. It can reach from zero to 50 per cent in 24 minutes and reach full capacity in a little under one hour.

Photography

Besides the beautiful camera and powerful processor, the Motorola Signature excels in photography. It is one of the very few handful of phones in the market, where you can just point the camera at the subject and be assured of a really good photo.

Motorola Signature.

Motorola Signature's camera has scored 164 points on the popular DXO Mark photography benchmark, making it the eighth-best camera smartphone in the world. In India, it is the fifth best.

On the back, it features a triple camera module-- a main 50MP main (with Sony LYTIA 828) with 50MP periscope telephoto (Sony LYTIA 600, with 3x optical zoom, up to 100x digital zoom, 71mm focal length) and 50MP ultrawide (122-degree field of view, macro support) with LED flash.

Motorola Signature.

It takes brilliant photos in natural sunlight. As you can see from the sample photos, the subjects look sharp, and the colours are vibrant.

The Signature phone takes impressive portrait mode pictures with crisp clarity and sharp focus on the subject. Be it a hairy pet dog, a human face or a multi-petal flower, it excels with edge detection and ensures there are no smudges. Also, it does a fine job with naturally blurring of the background to deliver an artistic bokeh effect. The device offers up to six levels to adjust the intensity of the blur effect.

Motorola Signature.

Additionally, it supports 24mm, 35mm, 50mm & 85mm focal lengths.

Motorola Signature.

The device supports plenty of generative Artificial Intelligence (gen AI)-powered tools such as AI Signature Style, which can automatically apply custom stylisation based on scenery such as food, portraits or landscapes.

It supports the AI Group Shot feature, which ensures every face is sharp, and merges multiple frames to avoid closed eyes.

It comes with an AI Action Shot feature, which can boost shutter speed to freeze high-motion scenes.

To get the best HDR photo, the camera is optimised with the AI Photo Enhancement Engine to reduce noise. It comes in handy during evening time or indoors with limited conditions.

To ensure the best motion photos, it comes with AI Adaptive Stabilisation. It is a nice tool to get nice, crisp photos while recording sporting events.

Motorola Signature Camera Samples with ultra-wide angle mode.

While taking big landscapes, the AI Colour Optimisation comes into play to get clear details of the background, such as Sky or foliage in the hill/mountain ranges. It even works to optimise the colour tones of skin and clothing, to make them more natural.

It also boasts AI Auto Smile Capture. It automatically makes the camera's shutter capture a photo when smiles are detected while taking a selfie or a group photo.

It can record 8K Dolby Vision videos. Even if the hands are shaky, the camera manages to get stable video with top-class quality. It comes very close to Apple's iPhone Pro models, which cost more than 1.2 lakhs.

It can even record 4K at 120 frames per second. And, it supports 4K Slow Motion at 120fps and full HD Slow Motion up to 240fps.

Motorola Signature's camera sample.

At night, the Motorola Signature does a fine job of getting decent photos with less noise.

Motorola Signature's camera sample.

It supports up to 100x zoom. It can take sharp photos up to 20X; beyond that, noise begins to creep in. However, that said, the AI-tuned software does a fantastic job of making them sharp and retaining the colour accuracy. As you can see, I was able to take shy birds such as pond heron and cormorants, without disturbing them, at the lake, very far from me.

Motorola Signature's camera sample.

Motorola Signature's camera sample.

Motorola Signature's camera sample.

On the front, it houses a 50MP (Sony LYTIA 500, Quad Pixel). It takes really nice selfies and videos (up to 4K).

Motorola Signature Camera sample with 1X.

Motorola Signature Camera sample with 2x Zoom.

Motorola Signature Camera sample with 3x Optical Zoom

With Google Photos app integration, photos and videos captured from the Motorola Signature phone can be edited with Gemini AI. It supports Magic Editor, Magic Eraser and Photo Unblur.

Motorola Signature Camera sample with 6X Zoom

Motorola Signature Camera sample with 10X digital Zoom.

Motorola Signature Camera sample with 50X digital Zoom.

Motorola Signature Camera sample with 100X digital Zoom.

Final thoughts

As advertised, Motorola Signature is a feature-rich phone, worth the asking price. It has a visually pleasing, colourful and minimalist slim design with high durability certification, very unique in its class.

It is not just fine looking phone, but also a reliable performer. Whatever the tasks are, be it gaming or high-resolution 8K video recording, it stays stable and doesn't easily get overheated.

Motorola Signature.

Despite the sleek design, it can deliver a full day of battery life under normal usage. And, the icing on the cake is the super-fast 90W charger.

The most impressive aspect I love about the Motorola Signature,

The Motorola Signature is available in three configurations-- 12GB RAM + 256GB storage, 12GB RAM + 512GB storage and 16GB RAM + 1TB storage-- for Rs. 59,999, Rs 64,999 and Rs 69,999, respectively.

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