With chrome you have more control over the start page, in that you can change it from the default one to a totally different one, but when comparing opera's speed dial to chrome's default start page Opera's is definitely far superior (and more customizable). The speed dial is the main reason I use opera as well (I like it much better than any speed dial addons for chrome/firefox, and even vivaldi's speed dial)
edit: apparently there are opera addons that allow you to load a custom page instead of the speed dial so that may also be a moot point anyway
edit: apparently there are opera addons that allow you to load a custom page instead of the speed dial so that may also be a moot point anyway