‘Flagship killer’ is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot these days, but Motorola’s newest offering certainly makes a compelling case for it. Motorola Signature packs the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset under its hood. This processor is positioned just below its ‘Elite’ counterpart. Additionally, the smartphone flaunts a 6.8-inch LTPO AMOLED display with a 165Hz refresh rate and 6,200 nits of peak brightness, a triple camera setup comprising 50MP sensors, a 5,200mAh Si/C battery with fast wireless charging support, NFC, IP68/69 protection, and other premium features. At a time when flagship smartphones cost upwards of Rs 70,000, Motorola’s disruptor is retailing for Rs 54,649 on Amazon. We used the smartphone for a week to find out how well it holds up against its flagship counterparts. Here is our review of the Motorola Signature.
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In This Article
Motorola Signature Review: Design and Display
Before we talk about the Signature’s design, let’s take a look at what you get inside its retail box.
- Smartphone
- 90W power adapter
- USB-C to USB-C cable
- SIM ejector
- Sealing tapes
- Quick start guide
- Thank you card
The Signature follows Motorola’s standard design language. However, instead of an elevated section for the camera array, it gets a two-step panel. The 3 camera sensors, along with the LED flash, are placed on a square metal plate. The back panel has a fabric texture. It keeps fingerprints and smudges at bay. We used the Patone Carbon colour variant for this review. It showed a great resistance to stains.
The aluminium frame houses the volume rocker and the side key on its right edge. The SIM tray, primary microphone, and speaker grille are positioned at the bottom. Up top lie the noise-cancelling microphone and the secondary speaker. The left edge houses the special AI button. The smartphone is comfortably sleek, measuring just 7mm along its edges. It weighs just 186g. Its in-hand feel is quite premium. Furthermore, it is compliant with MIL-STD-810H durability standards. The IP68/69 protection makes it immersible up to 1.2 metres in water for 30 minutes.
The 6.8-inch curved LTPO AMOLED display has a 165Hz refresh rate and can hit a peak brightness of 6,200 nits. It can hold its own in bright outdoor conditions, maintaining legibility with ease. The touch response is as smooth as it gets. The under-display ultrasonic fingerprint scanner is significantly faster than its optical counterparts.
The viewing experience offered by the 1.5K AMOLED display is tasteful and highly enjoyable. We streamed titles across OTT apps like Netflix, Prime Video, and JioHostar during the review period. The smartphone relayed impeccable details and punchy colours. The deep blacks on the AMOLED panel brought out spectacular contrast. The dual speaker setup produced a well-rounded audio output with a pronounced low end.
Motorola Signature Review: Performance and Cameras
At the heart of the Motorola Signature lies the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 SoC. The smartphone comes in 3 RAM (LPDDR5X) and storage (UFS 4.1) variants:
- 12GB + 256GB: Rs 59,999
- 16GB + 512GB: Rs 64,999
- 16GB + 1TB: Rs 69,999
We ran a couple of benchmark tests on the device. Here’s how it performed.
- AnTuTu 3D: 3,019,110
- Geekbench 6: 2,900 (single-core) | 8,655 (multi-core)
The Motorola Signature crushes routine tasks with ease. During the review period, we did not come across a single lag while carrying out everyday tasks like calling, instant messaging, web browsing, navigation, and media streaming. It didn’t feel like the smartphone needed to get out of second gear. Everything felt snappy and quick. The UFS 4.1 storage configuration ensured that apps did not take any time to load, while the LPDDR5X RAM managed them smartly in the background. The haptic motor produced a fine vibrational feedback.
Motorola’s flagship killer has something in it for gamers as well. The smartphone can run titles like BGMI and Call of Duty Mobile at high graphics and fps settings. The controls are smooth, and there are no frame drops to be seen. The 6,002mm² vapour chamber does a decent job of managing the internal temperature, but it is not the best in its class. The smartphone warms up after 25 minutes of continuous gameplay, but it can carry on for another 15 minutes without throttling.
Software duties on this smartphone are handled by Android 16 skinned with Motorola’s Hello UI. Motorola has promised 7 major OS upgrades for this phone, which is on par with Samsung’s coverage. There is no bloatware to be seen on the device. The software experience is as clean as it gets.
No one does gesture controls better than Motorola. Twisting your wrist with the phone in your hand launches the Camera app. Repeating this gesture flips the camera. Turning on the torch requires just two karate chop motions. Double-tapping the top third of the back panel triggers Moto AI by default, but it can be customised to carry out a bunch of other actions. However, what takes the cake for us is the new AI Key. Double-pressing this button gives you a summary of your unread notifications. A long-press triggers Moto AI.
The Moto AI suite has a bunch of useful AI features. Its Image Studio can generate pictures based on your prompts. Playlist Studio creates an AI playlist in your preferred music streaming app. The Remember This tool saves screenshots as memories. You can use it to save important stuff on the fly and set reminders. You also get Google’s Gemini AI assistant along with Copilot and Perplexity on this device.
The 5,200mAh Si/C battery pack on this device isn’t the largest one in this segment, but it keeps any kind of battery anxiety at bay. It can last an entire day, even on heavy usage. We ended an average day with ~30% left in the tank. The 90W power adapter provided in the box takes just over 40 minutes to fully charge the device. There is support for 50W wireless charging as well – something that not all ‘flagship killers’ can flaunt.
The Motorola Signature has 4 50MP camera sensors – three on the back panel and one nestled inside the punch-hole cutout on the display. The rear camera array comprises a primary shooter, an ultrawide lens, and a telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom.
The 50MP primary shooter takes impressive pictures with balanced, yet vibrant colours. The images are packed with details and showcase tasteful contrast and dynamic range. Even in limited lighting conditions, this camera is able to illuminate the subject and get rid of the grain.
There is a slight tonal shift in the colour palette of the image taken with the 3x telephoto lens. The images are still very detailed, but the colours feel a tad washed. With that being said, the average user will find a lot of use for this camera. The 50MP ultrawide lens takes good pictures with immaculate details and tasteful sharpness. Similar to the telephoto lens, there is a visible shift in the colour tone, but the results are very good overall. In limited lighting conditions, this lens does a decent job of lighting up the scene, but some noise manages to creep into the final results.
Portraits taken by the Motorola Signature are vibrant and well-focused. The native camera app offers 4 different focal length options – 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm. The smartphone does a good job of separating the subject from the background, but we were left wanting a stronger background blur. The 50MP front-facing camera takes clear selfies with vibrant colours and minimal tone and texture correction.
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Verdict
The Motorola Signature is easily one of the finest smartphones in the Rs 60,000 price bracket. It is a very easy smartphone to recommend, especially to someone who wants the perfect trifecta of performance, a clean software experience, and good cameras. The Signature puts up a great display on all three aspects. We also like that Motorola has not traded off ‘enthusiast’ features like NFC, wireless charging, and LTPO technology for the display. If you don’t want to break the bank on a flagship, this is the next best phone you can get.
Pros
- Bright display
- Good chipset
- Clean OS
- Great cameras
- 7 years of OS upgrades
Cons
- Not the best cooling systems for gaming
