When Motorola unveiled its Moto Edge series in 2020, it was presented as a new flagship from the budget-oriented brand. And after many years of great-value mobiles, the brand is about to offer another, even more premium flagship line.

Motorola in September, ahead of its official release in November, and phone fans are preparing for it to signal Moto's comeback in the US. I'm one of them, but I'm biased; I rarely review a Moto mobile I don't love.

Ahead of its full release, we don't know all the Motorola Signature 27's specs ( though it will run GrapheneOS). But one overlooked detail has me excited about a totally different feature than most are talking about.

Meet the Motorola Signature, the flagship you didn't know you needed

Motorola's new flagship series

Motorola's attitude with the Signature 27 seems to be inspired by Nigel Tufnel; it's turning all the usual specs up to 11.

The brand has teased a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chip, the most powerful available to Android, plus diamond-infused thermal gel and a heat-transfer vapor chamber for cooling.

It's set to have a 50MP main camera, but the highlight is a 200MP periscope module which can reach 100x zoom ("using generative AI" though, so presumably this is digital zoom with some software glazing).

Design-wise, the phone takes cues from previous Moto phones, with its textured weave rear and Pantone colors, but with a giant camera module rising from the back.

I've reviewed countless Motorola phones over the years, and this was its Edge playbook: wow people with an all-out impressive mobile, then refine the price point and spec offerings over several years until it finds a concrete identity.

However, it's the final feature — something the brand only nodded toward — that I'm most interested in. Apparently the phone was made with Bang & Olufsen.

B&O is a legacy audio brand making premium headphones and speakers like the Bang & Olufsen Beosound A1 2nd Gen, and apparently it's lent their acoustic smarts to the Motorola Signature 27.

When I read this, I presumed they'd simply tuned the phone's loudspeakers; some phones from Samsung, Xiaomi and Infinix come with this, and it's largely a marketing gimmick.

That's not the case here, though. It sounds like the Bang & Olufsen partnership could bring sweeping changes to the Motorola Signature 27, in a way that other phone brands would do well to copy as soon as possible.

What Bang & Olufsen is doing on the Motorola needs to be copied

And not just in other Moto phones

According to Motorola's website, Bang & Olufsen's main role on the Signature 27 is to create different sound profiles for the phone.

Presumably, these will work as system-wide equalization modes you can toggle between quickly, that'll bring sweeping changes to the way your phone sounds when you enable different activities.

For example, if you listen to a podcast, an appropriate EQ mode could boost the treble to make spoken words clearer. If you jump into a game, you'll enjoy boosted treble that gives gunfire or crunchy action sounds more visceral impact.

Right now, Android phones don't have a built-in way to do this unless you use a third-party app. Even then, you can't change the EQ presets in the phone's interface unless you open the app.

Your earbuds or headphones may have an equalizer in their app, but that sound will only apply when you use that product, and even then it won't be easy to toggle without opening the app.

On some phones, you can create an alternative; I use Samsung's Routines tool to automatically adjust the EQ when I open certain apps. But this isn't a default system-wide approach, as it takes a lot of preparation to get working.

If Motorola incorporates Bang & Olufsen's EQ modes well, it could offer a novel and convenient way to improve how your phone's content sounds, no matter what you listen on. As someone who likes their content to sound good, it's an exciting move.

Phone makers have spent years refining their displays and how you watch content, but they haven't paid as much attention to audio. Mobiles' built-in loudspeakers haven't changed much in the near decade I've been reviewing tech.

It remains to be seen how Motorola will use these tools. Perhaps they'll be automated, and you can set EQ presets per app. Alternatively, you'll be able to jump between the modes in the swipe-down Quick Settings menu.

I'd wager that the Motorola Signature 27 would come with a bespoke Bang & Olufsen app, so you could customize it yourself. Moto phones are often full of built-in apps, and so it'd be expected.

There's a good chance that the Motorola Signature 27 is the start of something special; in a press release announcing the collaboration, Lenovo, which owns Moto, implied it'll come to more devices in the future.

This could refer to the Motorola Signature 28 and so on, but I'd love to see it in the Moto Edge phones, because they're some of the best-value mid-range mobiles on the market. But a more likely bet is the brand's other premium range: the Motorola Razr foldables.

The release also mentioned an "expanded ecosystem," so I imagine future Motorola earbuds could also enjoy B&O tuning.

Motorola is rejoining the Android race with spirit

Motorola's one of my favorite Android makers; its mobiles offer better value for money than any other brand in my eyes, and I love the design language Edge and G phones have refined in recent years. Despite that, the brand doesn't enjoy the market share it should.

Moto occupies roughly the same market segment as Google, below the Apple and Samsung heavyweights. Even Xiaomi sells more units in the US than Moto, per Statcounter, and you have to import its devices because they're not officially on sale.

I'm hoping the Motorola Signature 27 helps spark more interest in the brand and boosts its market cap a little. Unique audio features help, but a good-value price point will certainly make it the perfect OnePlus replacement that we're all looking for.