Motorola’s wild-looking Signature 27 runs Qualcomm’s new Extreme chipset

Motorola has kicked off the race for Qualcomm’s new top-end chip. The Signature 27 is the first phone announced with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 inside, which makes it Motorola’s most serious flagship play in years — at least on paper.

But the phone’s selling point may be the thing that gets people arguing about it. Motorola went for a thin aluminum body with a woven tactical texture on one finish and a feather-inspired one on the other. The colors are black and green, though Motorola would like everyone to call them “Pantone coal smoke” and “Pantone capulet olive.”

And the shape sounds just as unusual as the materials. The body slopes upward into a detail Motorola has started to describe, but the source cuts off before that thought is finished. So for now, the device is half-spec sheet, half-fashion statement.

That leaves the practical questions hanging. Motorola still hasn’t said how much the Signature 27 will cost, when it will ship, or what the full specs will be. For a phone trying to lead with a brand-new flagship chip, that missing information matters almost as much as the design nobody’s likely to ignore.