Motorola Signature 27 takes 2026’s DxOMark camera crown

DxOMark has rated the Motorola Signature 27 as the best camera phone launched in 2026, awarding it an overall score of 173 points and its Gold Label Camera recognition. The result arrived on the same day Motorola launched the phone and places it above every other Android and iOS device from this year that the Paris-based testing firm has evaluated. It also sits second in DxOMark's global camera ranking, behind the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra on 175 points and one point ahead of the iPhone 18 Pro on 172.

The score is nine points higher than the 164 recorded by the original Motorola Signature in January, a result that already put the first-generation model inside DxOMark’s global top ten. DxOMark builds its overall rating from two subscores, Photo and Video, and reserves the Gold Label for phones that perform strongly in both.

Motorola’s camera team captured hundreds of thousands of photos and hundreds of hours of video while tuning the Signature 27, covering a wide range of lighting conditions, zoom ranges, and everyday scenarios. Its engineers also spent weeks with DxOMark’s teams in Paris, using the firm’s testing tools and methods to analyze performance in the lab and in real-world settings. Motorola says that work concentrated on portraits, low-light photography, zoom, and video.

In DxOMark’s assessment, the phone produced natural brightness, balanced colors, and clear detail across bright outdoor scenes, indoor settings, and nighttime environments. Portraits showed natural skin tones and well-defined facial features, and the camera held focus in group shots where subjects stood at different distances. The 3x telephoto delivered detailed images at medium distances and doubled as a portrait lens.

Olympe Corblet, Image Quality Expert at DxOMark, said the phone’s portrait processing keeps secondary subjects sharp in most situations. “Zoom holds up well from 3x to 6x, and a sensor-mode switch around 6x helps recover texture as you go further,” Corblet said.

Video testing returned smooth footage with stable exposure, consistent colors, and dependable autofocus, even as the phone moved between environments. Low-light recording kept noise under control when filming moving subjects, with results DxOMark said approach those of leading flagship devices.

A 50MP Sony LYTIA L910 sensor anchors the rear camera system. It uses Sony’s LOFIC technology, which captures and processes more light at the hardware level to hold detail in both highlights and shadows, and Motorola says it delivers up to six times better HDR in video than the previous Signature. Multispectral technology gathers additional color data to help the sensor read lighting conditions more accurately.

Alongside it sits a 200MP periscope telephoto with a 3x focal length, Motorola’s largest and highest-resolution telephoto sensor to date. Super Zoom Pro extends its reach to 100x, applying generative AI between 20x and 100x to improve clarity and color, while an Ultra resolution mode allows full 200MP crops after capture. Portrait mode also gains a new 135mm option.

The 50MP ultrawide camera covers a 122-degree field of view and focuses as close as 2.5cm for macro shots, combining four pixels into one for an effective 12.5MP photo resolution. A 50MP front camera completes the set.

Motorola also fitted what it calls the first dedicated EVS Action Sensor on a smartphone. The Event Vision Sensor detects pixel-level changes in light intensity and records motion information independently of the main cameras. Working with the Action Shot setting, which recognizes subject movement and adjusts shutter speed before capture, it is designed to produce sharper images of fast-moving subjects without manual adjustments. A long press on the shutter triggers burst mode.

The Signature 27 records 4K Dolby Vision video at up to 60fps on all rear cameras and 8K at 60fps on the main and telephoto cameras. Motorola’s Video Enhancement Engine adjusts color, exposure, noise reduction, and detail in real time as each frame is captured, and stabilization combines Qualcomm’s electronic image stabilization with 3.5° optical image stabilization hardware.

The phone runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 platform, and Motorola engineers worked with Qualcomm imaging specialists on custom algorithms for dynamic range, video quality, and image processing. Software additions include a redesigned Portrait Mode with multiple focal lengths, adjustable blur, and Dynamic Bokeh, which varies background blur according to subject distance. Signature Style tunes the color to a user’s editing preferences, while Voice Command, Group Shot, and Ultra HDR round out the feature list.