Hmm, kinda odd. Not sure if you are comparing this to Chrome, Safari or Edge but with those you have a lot less control over the start/speed-dial page. Use the gear icon in the upper right to edit nearly everything on the speed dial page including turning speed dial off.

One of the main reasons I switched to Opera was the ability to have more control over the start page.

The biggest reason to switch to Opera now is the ad blocker is much faster than ABP/Ghost/etc and web pages load significantly faster now.