Honda BeAT - Is it worth the price?

The automatic scooter segment in the country is experiencing fierce and unforgivable competition right now. And when things are this intense, there is no room for error. You simply cannot afford to make mistakes if you really want to survive in the game. This segment demands so much from the brands that performing consistently for them becomes difficult. They have to make sure that their product offers the best features at the best price.

Perhaps, this is the kind of scenarios where experience really matters. Honda has years of experience in this and that is why it is among the leaders. It has a good product line-up. The BeAT is one of its most popular scooters. And we are trying to find out whether it is worth the price or not. Talking about the price, the Honda BeAT price starts at Php 66,400 and goes till Php 69,900.

To make sure the BeAT has all the weapons and ammunition it needed to win this war, Honda provided it with a plethora of interesting features which make it look good and perform even better. Honda BeAT has a big and attractive headlight design which covers most of the real estate at the front. It sure is capable to lure in a lot of potential buyers, especially the youngsters. However, the headlight contains a conventional halogen setup and no LED. The front end of the BeAT also flaunts the sharp, sporty, and aggressive design which, again, should appeal to more young buyers.

Moving on, the instrument cluster here is a semi-digital unit. It has a conventional speedometer and various tell-tale lights. The digital display shows the fuel level and odometer reading. One additional thing to highlight here is the Eco indicator which lights up notifying you that you are riding fuel efficiently. This is a good way to extract the maximum fuel economy from the BeAT.

Powering the Honda BeAT is a 110 cc, 4-stroke, air-cooled engine which churns out 8.6 bhp of max power at 7,500 rpm and 9.21 Nm of peak torque at 6,000 rpm. It has Honda’s PGM-Fi system which enhances both the fuel economy as well as performance. The engine is quite smooth and refined. There is also an idling stop system which when enabled automatically shutdowns the engine during traffic or short stops to prevent unnecessary fuel consumption. This feature is only available in the top-most Premium variant. Another Premium only feature is the Combi-Brake system. We have seen it in other Honda two-wheelers as well. This system automatically applies proportional brake pressure to both the wheels when the left brake lever is pulled. It improves the overall braking efficiency.

When it comes to convenience, Honda BeAT specs sheet gets a large 11-litres under-seat storage compartment that is large enough to store most of your personal belongings. However, we aren’t really sure whether it can accommodate all that along with a full-face helmet or not. The BeAT also gets tubeless tyres whose importance you wouldn’t understand until and unless you have experienced a tyre puncture in your life. It’s a headache to mend. Honda also added a side stand switch which is a safety feature and shutdowns the engine automatically if the side stand is down.

So, these were some of the key features of the Honda BeAT and we are quite impressed. Yes, there are other scooters available in the price range of Php 66,400 to Php 69,900, but they don’t really have any significant or different feature that makes them a better scooter than the BeAT. In fact, the BeAT is much better-looking than most of its competition. It is available in three variants - Fashion Sport, Street, and Premium and we think that the top-end Premium variant is the one to buy. So, the answer to the question, ‘Is Honda BeAT worth the price?’ is, yes, it is.