Capturing the market for funky and fuel efficient automatic scooters targeted at the youth has been an ongoing battle for quite some time now. This battle plays out in all of South Asia between the numerous scooter manufacturers operating here. Out of these, Philippines has become the arena for the fight between the Yamaha Mio Sporty and the Honda BeAT. Both of these are extremely stylish automatic scooter that come with very fuel efficient engines and very similar price tags. Choosing between the two then, is not exactly very easy. We can however, give you our opinion about choosing between the two.

Being targeted at the youth, the Honda Beat and the Yamaha Mio both sport stylish designs and vibrant colors. Honda’s design gives it an aggressive front end with a V shaped headlight cluster. The dual tone layered style of body panels gives it a sophisticated look. The Yamaha Mio Sporty by comparison looks slightly dated. First there is the handlebar mounted headlight setup with the indicators mounted on the apron that make it look simple. The apron is also home to two large intakes that make it look like it has perpetually flared nostrils. The panels also look plain by comparison. Honda also does a better job with its color schemes and stickering than the Yamaha. The front apron on the Yamaha Mio Sporty is also smaller than the one on the Honda which makes it look too feminine. Honda also comes with a more modern instrument display that has a small and slim digital display sharing space with a large analog dial. The Yamaha has to do with a conventional all analog setup. The Honda being fuel injected also comes with an engine malfunction indicator lamp on the instrument panel. Both the scooters come with alloy wheels but the ones on the Honda are definitely the more attractive of the two. The Honda is also fitted with wider tires than the Yamaha which are also tubeless. Score one for the Honda then.

We now move to the engines that each of these scooters come with. The Honda BeAT is powered by a 110 cc fuel injected, air-cooled engine producing 8.5 hp and 9.01 Nm of torque. The Yamaha Mio Sporty on the other hand, uses a 113.7 cc engine making 7.64 hp and 7.2 Nm of torque. The difference in power might seem low at first but then you consider that both these bikes weigh under 100 kg. This deficit of power then should put a serious dent in the Yamaha‘s performance. But we are not exactly worried about performance here. We should instead be more concerned with fuel economy. The Honda seems to have the Yamaha beat here too with a fuel consumption figure of around 60 km/L. The Yamaha can only manage up to 45 km/L. This is mostly thanks to the Honda using fuel injection and also employing an idle stop start system to shut down the engine every time it idles for more than 3 seconds. The Mio Sporty does not come with either of these features.

Moving to safety both the scooters are similarly equipped with a single disc on the front and a leading trailing drum brake on the rear. But the Honda also comes with its combi braking system that applies both the front and the rear wheels when the rear brake lever is pulled. This distributes the braking power evenly across the two wheels which ensures that all the braking power gets utilized in the best way. This then seems to have landed yet another point in Honda’s scorecard.

The Honda BeAT also comes with a magnetically lockable ignition keyhole shutter that reduces the risk of the scooter being stolen by thieves. With all these features and qualities the Honda BeAT costs as much as Php 69900. The Yamaha Mio Sporty is priced at Php 66900. And this is where things get very complicated.

The thing is, that while the Mio Sporty is definitely inferior to the Honda in many crucial ways, it is in fact much cheaper. The Honda, on the other hand, is almost as expensive as the Yamaha Mio 125 (Php 70900) which comes equipped with many of the same features as the Honda. On top of that it comes with a bigger engine that produces slightly more power. It also addresses many issues with the Mio Sporty’s styling by being much more modern and aggressive. So where does this leave the Honda? The Honda BeAT is a very good scooter that excels in every field not just in comparison to the Mio Sporty but also in isolation. It fits very well between the ever popular Mio Sporty and the Mio 125. As for the Mio Sporty it continues to be extremely popular. Anyone looking for a cheap source of transport or their first set of wheels should definitely give this scooter a look.