Good decision. I eventually chose the Ailunce HD1 hand held transceiver, and am very impressed with it. It far exceeded my expectations, especially with full keyboard facilities to control everything. Earlier Chinese Radios, although relatively inexpensive, required computer programming.
There are a lot of obvious advantages to having both the HD1 and Icom handhelds, not just DMR., given the added ability to monitor more frequencies at the same time. Given the build quality of the Icom, its performance / price and extended frequency range (not to mention both Radios being temperature frequency stable) they represent (in my opinion) a much better 'deal' than the AR-DV10. A real shame, the DV10 should have been a world beater, even at its inflated cost.
With both other Radios together, the only missing mode that the DV10 has is Tetra, which for me is not much of a loss, given most of the interesting transmissions are likely to be firmly and totally encrypted.
Still a great pity though about the DV10. AOR have produced so many excellent Receivers over the years, especially the AR-DV1, it is so sad that their attitude towards really fixing the DV10 is so deficient. I fully realise that would have incurred a lot of expense to them, but by not doing so they have, and continue, to put their previously well deserved excellent reputation at risk.
I decided on a TYT MD-UV380 GPS Dual Band.
Agree with you re Icom's gear, own an IC-R8600/IC-7300/IC-705 and a few other Icom models. Icom truly are the gold standard for quality of build, performance and reliability, their gear is state-of-the art.
Also concur re AOR these past few years.
Some of their older receivers were the best ever made. Have an AR5000+3 which still is a fantastic wide band radio, just lacks the newer features of recent receivers, and three AR-7030s (one back in the UK). The AR-7030 was/is probably the best HF receiver ever made for the radio amateur market.
My impression is AOR are likely suffering financially, they've closed their repair facility here in the US. It's been sad to witness their reputation taking a (justifiable) tumble these past few years. I was interested in the AR-DV10 but went with Icom's IC-R30 instead after reading about all the problems it suffered from. No DMR with the IC-R30 but it does what Icom says it should and does it very well, at a considerably lower price than the AR-DV10.