D9  Good heavens, Bento @ $50 is not in the same league as iLife or iWork for $80!!!

iWork = Best presentation software available for Macs, a good layout program that doubles as a word processor, and an average spreadsheet program that's an excellent solution for novice or limited requirement users.

iLife = Some of the best, if not the best, software out there for creating home movies, DVDs, music as well as managing personal photos. Include at least an easy web creation program and this is a great bargain of software for $80.

Bento = easy, simple database that offers limited features & customization, no security, no integrated syncing for Family Pack, and slow launches.

This is by far the most disappointing offering that FileMaker has provided. As earlier posts mentioned, it has become harder and harder to justify FileMaker Pro's upgrade costs; in fact, I'm still at version 7. Bento2, however, is barely worth the $50 it asks and an insult for those considering to upgrade from v1.

/   
(Version 2.0v3)

COCOANUT  There are many reasons to like this product. It has a great concept, it's easy to use and it fills a great void on the mac for entry-level database software. Unfortunately, the negatives far outweigh the positives. It's expensive when you consider there are no upgrades offered and the single upgrade in the past year offered few meaningful features.

The company is arrogant and seemingly driven entirely by it's marketing department not customer requests. Check their boards and you will find dozens of requests for basic password protection....but that feature didn't make it into this "major" yearly upgrade. Nor did many other user requested features such as label printing, template customization and many others.

I WAS going to use Bento and have now decided to dust off my old copy of Filemaker and use that instead, at least it will protect my data.

This company (yes, I know it a subsidiary of Apple) is known for useless (and expensive) upgrades and I'm frankly tired of sending them my money.  
(Version 2.0v2)

RADDLE  Yes, dream on, FileMaker. I don't mind paying each year for an iLife upgrade, because it's a mature and (for the most part) rock solid group of very useful applications that gets significant new features each time. But I'm *not* shelling out again to help FileMaker shove a ropey product towards something barely meriting a 1.0 release.

To echo what someone else below said, all this 'new version' has inspired me to do is stop trying to work with Bento and throw it off my hard disk altogether.   
(Version 2.0v2)

LEV  Quick followup after using this upgrade (flatgrade? up-pay?) today"

-- Reports: no substantive improvement.

-- Speed: like treacle. Slower on my G5 iMac and MacBook than v1

-- Printing: no substantive improvement

-- New "themes": uninteresting

-- New split view: useful.

-- Search/select: hopeless. Still either "all" or "any"; no searches like "Find everything with (A and B) and (C or D) let alone anything more complex.

-- No ability to base new smart folders on existing ones; in other words, impossible to search subsets of data.

-- Drag data as Export to Numbers: Numbers crashes

This is lamentable.  
(Version 2.0v2)

ERCROSS  Bento is a great concept - poorly implemented. I bought v.1 for it's integration with Address Book because it extend it's functionality as a database while still allowed the core AB data to be shared amongst other Mac apps. However, integration has some bugs. Some of these are fixed with v.2, but Filemaker wants owners of their defective product to re-purchase another buggy second edition at full price. V.1 users have been unable to get Filemaker to commit to at least fixing the bugs in v.1.

Sadly because of their poor implementation Filemaker has left the market wide open for a software developer to offer a true database with Address Book integration. They have a user base who are hungering for such who would abandon Bento in a heartbeat. Bento lacks the basic database functionality that any one who has ever used a database looks for such as the ability to create reports with calculations and subtotals, to be able to customize form fonts and backgrounds, etc. One would have thought that the makers of Filemaker would have known what people expect in a database.

Can some people find it useful, yes just like some still use a pencil and paper. If you are willing to implement a bunch of work-arounds, which really should have been the products name, (iWork-Around) and can be the eternal optimist waiting that some day you'll get the functionality you were expecting after paying for numerous upgrades as there are no guarantees of bug fixes, then this may be the product for you.   
(Version 2.0v2)

GLUJI  I purchased Bento on the day it was released and have seen little development with just minor updates.

Less than a year later and I'm advised that there is a new version and I'm expected to pay full price again!

There has been a lot of hype surrounding this product but I get the feeling that I paid to be a beta tester and that version 2 is the 'proper' version we were expecting in the first place!

What about an upgrade path for us early adopters and advocates?

I will not be purchasing version 2 unless I see an agreeable upgrade path and will not be advising friends and clients to purchase this product any more!

Sometimes you just need to vote with your feet!  
(Version 2.0v2)

DANA SUTTON  I agree that the lack of an upgrade policy is a slap in the face for v.1 purchasers (and doesn't bode well for anybody who purchases v.2 and hopes that FileMaker will adopt such a policy next time around). This has some new features I don't especially want and lacks features for which early adopters have been screaming ever since the first release, of which some kind of encryption feature stands at the top of the list. If you read the Bento BB, you'll quickly get the idea that the developers simply aren't listening to their customers. Sure, I'd pay ten or fifteen bucks for this upgrade, and probably figure out some way to put some of these features to good use, but that's about as far as I'd be willing to go and I can manage to live without these "improvements."  
(Version 2.0v2)

LEV  I spoke too soon. Bento 2 is here. Full price, it would appear. No upgrade, it would appear. The fiduciary morality of carnival barkers, it would appear.

Less than a year in, and FileMaker are trying to gouge us for another $50 for what's in effect a point release of stuff that should have been in there from the start. Yay! It can store emails. Yay! It can import Numbers files! Yay! there are TEN MORE THEMES! Yay! Th-- no, actually, I don't mean "yay". I mean "feh". Printing is still rudimentary, the reporting functions are pretty well Pleistocene, etc etc. Demanding full price again is just insulting.

Oh, yaaaawn. I'll see about getting my stuff out of Bento and back into Excel, and then FileMaker can go twist in the wind. They've had my money for a substandard product. They're not getting it again for something that's still not up to the mark.  
(Version 2.0v2)

IMHO  I started with the first version of Bento. Needed it for a.o. passwords. How strange: a database program without encryption or password protection! Many users asked for any form of security on the Bento forum. There is a new release - without any protection of your valuable data. As far as I see here Bento 2 offers correction of errors in version 1.x. Pay again the price of the complete package for that? Nowhere. I changed to Data Guardian, that offers more for less, only about US$ 20,00.  
(Version 2.0v3)

NESSUNO  This upgrade policy is outrageous, and it's gonna be a PR desaster for Filemaker.com.

See all these comments:

http://forums.filemaker.com/fmbnto/board/message?board.id=contsugother&message.id=746&jump=true  
(Version 2.0v2)