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I have been an AKTA explorer user for about 5 years and switched to DuoFlow about 4 yrs ago and now have one in my own lab. The BioRad DuoFlow is awesome. It never ever breaks. I never had any problems with this machine at all, it takes any column (pharmacia or otherwise) given the right adapters. The AKTA are really cumbersome and complicated to use and teach on - its all inside a big black box that looks (and feels) like a tank, while the DuoFlow has a really simple design, and is basically "plug and play". 

The AKTA is really good for analytical applications when you have very small amounts of your protein and of course you can detect multiple wave lengths at a time (you can add special unit for multi wavelengths on the biorad). The DuoFlow struggles  with very small protein concentrations (<0.05mg/ml) and the void volume on its tubing further dilutes the sample. If you know what you are doing, it is easy to optimize the setup in such a way that you minimize the void volume on the DuoFlow. 

Finally, the AKTA has an in line filter which always gets clogged up when you have buffer with detergent. The DuoFlow does not have a filter at all which means if your students and postdocs are not careful, the filters in the column will get clogged. But all you need to do is filter your sample prior to injection.

BioRad service is not so great but if you take care of your machine you really dont need to worry. It is really robust. Plus, for the price of an explorer you could buy two top-of-the-line DuoFlow systems together with columns.

Tamir.