While there are a number of advantages to AESA radars, including reliability, flexibility, range, and low signature, there are also disadvantages, most notably cost, weight, and look angle.

An AESA radar will typically offer inferior performance at significant angles off boresight, and a narrower field of view.

It appears that SAAB is following Eurofighter’s lead, and will offer a swashplate AESA radar for Gripen NG (see picture), in partnership with Radar supplier Selex, offering a “scan angle of up to 100°” (off boresite).

This should address one of the concerns of potential customers, though there is still the whole “chicken-egg” thing, where the customer does not want to be the only foreign customer for the system, or support and upgrades become prohibitively expensive.

SAAB’s brochure is here. (PDF)