It’s been a while since Motorola released a flagship-quality smartphone to the Australian market.  This year, the decision was made to forgo this trend and bring its latest flagship smartphone, the motorola signature, to our shores.

The signature offers premium-level smartphone photography thanks to Sony LYTIA 828 sensors, a 50MP selfie camera and support for Dolby Vision capture, earning itself the DxOMark Gold Label.  

Designed to fit comfortably in your hand with its curves and ultra-thin profile, the big 6.8-inch Extreme AMOLED display delivers a premium viewing experience.

Support for up to 90W wired and 50W wireless charging helps to deliver a stress-free battery life and smartphone experience.  

Available now and with a price starting at just $1,499 in PANTONE Martini Olive and PANTONE Carbon, the motorola signature, promises an ultra-premium experience at a less-than-premium price.

Design and display

Most premium smartphones these days have square, right-angled edges but the motorola signature defies that trend with a throwback design with more rounded edges that fit into the hand more comfortably.  It is unusual and feels very different to every other premium smartphone on the market

The motorola signature display is a 6.8-inch Extreme AMOLED display, which is flat – sort of.  All four sides of it have a very slight curve.  The curve is not so big as to diminish the usable display size, but it is enough that sliding your finger along the edge of the display is a smooth gesture – I loved this when it was included in smartphones a few years ago, so it is nice of Motorola to include it again.

The display is bright, vibrant and a joy to use, as most high-end displays are these days.  It is often difficult to discern one display from another, with the differences lying in the software each company uses to optimise the display’s colours, brightness, and vibrancy.  

Motorola are no different to other manufacturers – they allow you to adjust the colour vibrancy and temperature to your own preferences.  You might have some, but most will not – the default settings are pretty good and were certainly good enough for me.

The ultrasonic fingerprint sensor is located on the display and is fast and reliable- nothing out of the ordinary in 2026.  There is also face unlock but that lacks the biometric requirements for use with banking apps and the like.  I tend not to use face unlock now when it’s not as secure as when you do want to use Google Wallet etc, your face will often unlock the phone before you can do it biometrically with your fingerprint.  If you want, you can use the face unlock, as it is quick and reproducible.

The volume and power buttons are on the right-hand side of the device – nothing ground-breaking here – but the big addition is the “AI Key” on the left-hand side of the phone.  The AI Key will, funnily enough, launch Moto AI when you press and hold it, but if you don’t want that, you can turn it off.  

The double-press of the button can be customised to “Update me”, “take notes”, or no action.  This is nice, but I would have preferred more customisation options, such as launching an app or action when the button is pressed.  Next time, maybe?  Unlikely though, because I’m sure Motorola would much prefer you launch one of their apps or their AI.

Camera

The camera setup on the motorola signature looks great on paper, with the 50MP Sony LYTIA 500 front-facing selfie camera supported by the triple rear camera which encompasses:

  • 50MP Sony LYTIA 828, f/1.6 with a mutlispectral 3-in-1 light sensor
  • 50MP Ultrawide camera, 12mm focal length, 122° FOV, f/2.0
  • 50MP Periscope Telephoto, 3x optical zoom, 100x Super Zoom Pro, Sony LYTIA 600, f/2.4, 71mm focal length, OIS, macro

All the usual camera software enhancements are included – the most significant of which are:

100x Super Zoom Pro Face Retouch Long Exposure 
Action Shot Gesture Capture Macro 
Auto Night Vision Google Lens Night Vision 
Auto Motion Capture Group Shot Panorama
Auto Smile Capture HDR Pro Mode
Dual Capture Video Live Filters 

All of Google Photos features are also possible on the motorola signature.

Once again, so many of these you will never use.  I just can’t see why so many are included.  AI can help touch up certain things, but sometimes I want it to be proactive, suggest the best way to take a picture (Google Pixel devices do this), and offer post-capture suggestions to style the image better.  IK’m not creative enough and don’t have the time to do it myself.

Samsung used to have a great function where, when you took a photo, it automatically created a handful or so of different types of images with various filters, etc., of that photo, allowing you to pick and choose what you like.  I’d love that on every device – who really has the time to test and use these different software features and AI functions to their fullest extent?

You can check out a sample of the images captured with the motorola signature below:

Software

Motorola has always done a great job with their software.  They originally started out making software that was the purest version of Android there was, and have slowly introduced more and more tweaks and customisation to their Android skin over the years, all while staying true to the AOSP Android flavour.

The motorola signature continues this tradition with the quick settings being extremely similar to those on the Pixel devices, and although the settings app is skinned in a plain black and white colourway, the headings will be familiar to those used to a minimally-skinned Android device.

Motorola has added some of its own settings, including Moto AI and Gestures, allowing you to customise these two software features.  Customising the AI may actually make it useful for you, but I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one.

My two favourite tweaks that motorola include though, and have been since I first came across them, are the shake to open camera and the double chop to turn the torch on or off.  I’m surprised more manufacturers don’t do this – maybe they are worried about users chopping the phone out of their hand?  

Battery and charging

The motorola signature supports incredibly fast charging, 90W TurboPower wired charging, and 50W TurboPower wireless charging.

“Get 50% of battery in just 15 minutes with 90W TurboPower charging, or refuel wirelessly with up to 50W TurboPower™ wireless charging.”

The fine print here is that for the 50% battery claim, you need to use a Motorola TurboPower 125W Charger (sold separately), and you need to buy a specific 50W wireless charger to get the full 50W wireless – I have no idea what this charger is or where you would buy it, it certainly isn’t listed on the motorola website.  

Personally, I don’t think you’d ever need the specific wireless charger, since you can charge the signature at 90W via a wired connection using the separately purchased 125W charger from either JB Hi-Fi or Harvey Norman for $89.

Although I don’t have a 125W charger to test the full charging speeds, I can say that plugging it into a normal USB-C port from my PC charged the device from nearly empty to full in just over an hour. The 5,200mAh battery will also last all day, even for the heaviest users.  The good thing about Motorola’s lightweight software skin is that it is battery-friendly and won’t bog down the device or waste resources.

Wireless charging works really well although it seems the Qi charging coils are placed quite high on the rear of the device and some of my chargers were unable to consistently charge the phone because the camera island bump prevented the phone from being able to achieve the correct charging location on the coils, especially with the included case on the phnoe. Qi2 magnets would help but, like so many other manufacturers, motorola has not included Qi2 compatibility.

Accessory: moto pen ultra

Motorola also sent me the moto pen ultra to check out. It is meant to work just as an S-Pen does for Samsung devices.  You pair the pen to the phone and then you can control your phone using the pen, take notes, drawings and more — supposedly.  

Configuration is easy with a special pen bubble, allowing quick access to various functions you may want to use.

The pen ultra is stored in a silo that is totally separate from the phone itself, which could well be dangerous if you are one for misplacing things.  The silo is charged with a USB-C connection and holds charge itself — that is how the pen is charged.  I’m not a fan of carrying extra items around, so I wouldn’t use the pen much. But if you take a lot of notes in meetings, at your desk, etc., this may be for you.  It’s not something I could see myself using while on the go, though, only while sitting down at a meeting, although its use may be difficult to figure out.  

Notice above I used the word supposedly? The reason for that is that I could not get it to recognise handwriting. You are meant to be able to write with the pen in a system text box and the system will then convert that handwriting to text. It did not work for me. The settings motorola showed me were not present on my device and switching the language over to UK English did not help either. I would be hesitant to buy this for this reason — unless the folks in-store can show you how to get it working but I couldn’t, even with motorola’s help. At $139 it’s a very tough sell.

Final thoughts

It has been a while since motorola has brought a top notch phone to our shores but this year they have graced us with the motorola signature and we should all rejoice. The motorola signature brings all of motorola’s usual Android enhancements and fluid, smooth operating system but to a premium device.

The performance is something we have not seen from a device from motorola for a long time and I’m here for it. The design is a bit old skool with the curved sides but it is nice to be different sometimes, the camera is top notch, although it isn’t quite up to the standard of a Pixel, Apple, OPPO, Samsung or Xiaomi flagship but it still excellent. I was able to capture great images in all lighting conditions.

The speed of the operating system is a nice change. The only downside is the lack of a charger in the box — but then Google, Apple and Samsung do not incldue one either.

Starting at under $1500 the motorola signature offers great value for money and I can highly recommend it if you want a premium device but don’t want to pay the prices north of $2000 that some manufacturers charge in 2026.

Pricing

  • motorola signature – The motorola signature is available for pre-order from today at JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman for RRP $1,499 (256GB) or RRP $1,699 (512GB) in PANTONE Martini Olive and PANTONE Carbon . If you order before the end of today you can pick up the 512GB version for the price of the 256GB version.