It's much faster to starting up after turning the power button on and 3).The scan time is much faster, probably on average about 40% faster. It's a lot quieter, I notice this when the machine goes through its focus stage during the scanning process, 2). In comparison to the M1 ( which I still own ) and the new ArtixScan F2, I would have to say that the key improvements with the new ArtixScan F2 would be: 1).
The M1 scanner has been a real work horse for me, after 2000 scans it needed some repairs to the autofocus system, so I sent it off to Microtek in California, they were able to fix it no problem. In late 2007 I upgraded to the new M1 scanner, it featured auto focus, a while ago I did a scan comparison test between my M1 and an Epson V750, I thought that the Epson scans were a tad sharper than the Microtek M1, but not by a whole lot, I also thought that the M1 scans looked less "grainy" than the V750 scans, I thought that by the time I made prints in the 16 x 20 print range with a little extra sharpening that those differences would not be an issue at all.
I liked it because at the time it was one of the few scanners on the market that could scan my 8 x 10 negatives and something that I could afford in my price range, now of course there are other scanners on the market, like the Epson V700 and V750 scanners.
Some background, I have owned the Mictotek series of flatbed scanners going back to the model ScanMaker i900 that I bought in 2004.