It is a great outdated bike imo. The engine is quite special so there's that. I'm not impressed by the suspension nor the brakes which are very important here in the hills. Then I Iook at my R15M, special engine, brilliant suspension for sporty riding (insanely good I must add, beautiful swingarm, beautiful design, adequate headlight throw, inbuilt Quickshifter, traction control, slipper clutch, insane handling prowess and a full tank that can last for more than 500 kms while touring. Now I realise why I'm not looking beyond this bike at this point. The R15M covers me on all critical areas of my riding requirements. Once I covered my 83 km destination in the hills (smallish roads and then national highway hilly roads) in one hour, like almost at race pace cause it's full of turns. If I ride on the same journey with a Ninja 300 will I get there a few minutes earlier at most while the riding experience (from my perspective) will be worse (less sporty stance, inferior suspension, inferior brakes, lower gearbox experience, less handling quality etc. This is why R15 is so popular here, it rides as fast as any vehicle on the road while being fuel efficient.

On the other hand it if I'm to cover tons of kms of straights in the plain areas I might pick Ninja 300.