In the switched reluctance motor with segmental rotor (SRMS) the magnetic saliency of the rotor is due to a series of magnetic segments, which allow the magnetic flux to flow on short loops. In this paper, the study of this kind of SRM is carried out, and comparisons with a conventional switched reluctance motor (CSRM) are established. Two models based on 2D finite element method are used. In the first part, the descriptions of the two motors are briefly given. Secondly, some characteristics including field distributions, inductances, flux, electromagnetic torques and particularly torque-speed curves are compared. The taking into account of optimized control parameters and the large range of speed give special attention to the latter comparison.