I just bought the Primefilm 3650U from costco.com ($250 USD shipped.)
Let me say, it's exactly what I expected it to be ... cheap,
serviceable, but not much more.
I was mainly interested in the 'ICE' (infrared dust/scratch removal)
feature, because the 3650U is the only 35mm film-scanner in its price
class to offer this feature. It almost completely conceals small
dust specs and scratches. For larger spots, scratches, the ICE'd
output is noticeably 'disturbed' (but better than no ICE.)
The color-quality is quite poor. The box claims '48-bit color', but
really the hardware is closer to 36-bit. The driver software can send
data in 48-bit format (with the lower bits padded to 0s.) This is
noticeable when adjusting gamma or color/exposure in photo-software.
In the digital-world, this scsanner has very little 'exposure latitude.'
If you need to darken or lighten some negative/slide, the adjusted
colors suffer from severe posterization and color-banding. Instead,
you get better results by adjusting the 'exposure-level' and re-scanning
the entire frame (a time consuming process.)
PIE's previous film-scanners (1800U, 2700U) suffered the exact same
problem, leading me to believe the 3650U uses the same basic A/D
converter module -- it stinks.
And mechanically, the 3650U is just like the 1800u/2700u. It's a
'clamshell' design with no auto-loading of any kind. The user must
position each frame (of a strip) or slide in the scan-window, by hand.
That's fine for scanning a few slides or negatives -- but if you need
to batch convert several rolls, you'll waste a lot of time doing
each frame one by one.
The low-end Minolta (Dual Scan IV) probably has better color-quality,
but it's only 3200dpi, and more importantly, it lacks ICE.
For hobby-usage, either scanner would work fine. Just don't plan on
selling any printed scans