Motorola Signature — Galaxy S killer or galactic blunder?

Though a clear comparison of €1,060 vs €1,460 is not exactly honest. In reality, you shouldn’t be buying a Galaxy at MSRP in the first place. On announcement, Samsung has special deals for the pre-orders. On launch, it has special deals to celebrate the new model. Then, every couple of months, there are more deals.

More realistically, a Galaxy S26 Ultra would probably be about €1,200 on deal days. That's still north of that Moto price, but does the Signature offer enough of an undercut to draw some Samsung fans in?

The Signature also made another compromise:

The “weaker” processor

The Motorola Signature is outfitted with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, which makes it sound like it’s the latest-and-greatest from Qualcomm. But it’s not really — the actual new flagship processor is the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Yeah, great naming scheme right there.

OK, so how… “bad” is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5?

Well, we already tested the OnePlus 15R, which has the same processor. Long story short, it’s about as fast as an older Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.

That’s the same processor that hums inside the Galaxy S24 Ultra. And, as someone who spent most of 2025 with a Galaxy S24 Ultra in his pocket (and still has it at home, because I am too lazy to reset it), let me tell you — that’s neither a slow phone nor a slow chip.

However, the Motorola Signature employs a fancy new copper mesh liquid metal cooling, which may allow the processor to run at higher speeds for longer periods.

That said, if Motorola is asking €1,000 for the Signature, it doesn’t look great when it’s equipped with a less-than processor.

The next point may be the tie-breaker on whether this phone will be a win or a resounding meh:

The camera sounds very promising

The Motorola Signature comes with a full triple camera, all with 50 MP sensors on the back. The main one is a Sony LYT-828, which is still rather new but very promising.

On paper, the LYT-828 is very impressive. It’s designed to deliver superior dynamic range and low-light performance — but that’s what they all say. It uses advanced Hybrid Frame-HDR technology to achieve a dynamic range of over 100 dB (the brightest part of a photo is 100,000 times brighter than the darkest), roughly equivalent to 17 stops. In simple terms, that rivals some cinema-grade sensors.

I have experience with the LYT-828 inside the Vivo X300 Pro. And I am very happy with the photos that this phone produces — each picture comes out vibrant, sharp, well-exposed, with exceptional HDR, and ready to share and just “wow”.

Now, it’s unclear how much of that is Vivo’s software magic and how much of the heavy lifting is done by the sensor. So the Motorola Signature still has some work to do to prove itself. Needless to say, I am very excited to try it out.

The secondary sensors aren’t anything crazy. The telephoto camera is a 3x, and while the phone apparently has a 100x Super Zoom Pro, I am not expecting much from it — let’s say I am allowing for the opportunity to be surprised.

However, it’s exciting to see that the Signature will support two macro modes — telephoto macro and ultra-wide lens macro. You can pick your favorite (I am really partial to telephoto macro and love to see it on more phones!).

A phone for Samsung to fear or just an experiment?

OK, it’s clear that Motorola is being very cautious with this release. Exact availability for different regions is still a bit foggy, and there appears to be no planned US launch. Companies typically do this when gauging interest — the production lines are probably not churning out Signatures as we speak.

The price does feel like it could benefit from some adjusting. Currently, the Signature costs about as much as a OnePlus 15. OK, it looks prettier, but has a slower processor, and camera performance is still up in the air. If it happens to be on par with what Vivo managed to do with the LYT-828, I’ll take it all back.

But I feel this will more often be compared to the top-tier Galaxy. In that regard, the Motorola Signature has the potential to win some hearts.

The Motorola Signature is here to test fan sentiment

With a brand-new premium price-tag, the Signature wants to see how much good will Motorla has gathered these past few years. It’s definitely a phone that tries to stand on Moto’s reputation, it kind of has that air of “You know us, you can spend this money” around it. Instead of trying to entice you with an aggressive undercut of the market or a unique feature other than the linen texture.

And that’s why Motorola is being a bit careful with the release. The company is just as curious as me whether that will fly.