![Bento [OLD VERSION]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/419K3McH%2B9L._SL160_.jpg)
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List Price: $49.00
Our Price: $49.00
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: FileMaker
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: CD-ROM
Brand: Filemaker Inc.
EAN: 0044866034724
Feature: Organize all the details of your busy life in one place
Format: CD-ROM
Label: FileMaker
Manufacturer: FileMaker
Model: TP934LLA
Platform: Macintosh
Publisher: FileMaker
Release Date: 2008-01-08
Studio: FileMaker
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Features
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Organize all the details of your busy life in one place
Manage contacts, coordinate events, track projects, and prioritize tasks faster and easier than ever before
Links with Mac OS X Address Book and iCal; Imports spreadsheets and other CSV files
Includes ready-to-use templates, and elegant themes designed by Mac artists
Just point and click or drag and drop to change the look of any form and see information in a way that makes sense to you
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Editorial Reviews:
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Bento organizes all your important information in one place, so you can manage your contacts, coordinate events, track projects, prioritize tasks, and more.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Broken and no plans to fix it
Comment: THere are some serious flaws with this product. When I contacted Filemaker who developed Bento I was told that only bugs that cause data loss will be fixed. I have to live with the other issues or buy v2 which also has bugs that will not be fixed per this policy. Don't believe me? Check out their own web forums.
Customer Rating:
Summary: read user comments before you buy
Comment: There are a ton of reviews for this product on the web, try to filter our the marketing plants and the irate users. I purchased Bento from amazon and here are my thoughts on both usability and the now infamous Filemaker policy regarding NO upgrades.
The best thing about Bento is that their intention was to make a VERY simple database "oriented" product that looks great. There really is a niche for this product and assuming you can find ways to make it your own then it has value. The greatest strength is its greatest weakness and that is why most people who critique this product find it too crippled for their use. Through tweaking the guts of the program I was able to make it useful for me but it IS a very elementary piece of software.
So should you buy it? I have reviewed the upgrade to Bento 2 and still find little different from Bento 1 to change my review in the previous paragraph. This certainly is not a full upgrade from 1 to 2 and still can disappoint many a buyer. I have hopes that this will become a mature product but I fear that it will not. To me the issue lies in the attitude of Filemaker as they are not looking at this software as a long term project.
Based on the research I have done they have either made a major marketing blunder in alienating their core users or they are simply taking a short sighted view on who will buy their product (ie one-time buyers who care little about the long term use of the product.) I myself will wait for Bento 4 (which in Filemaker timelines may be released within the year :)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Unacceptably slow, surprisingly awkward, feeble capabilities
Comment: Bento version 2 has gotten some good reviews.
I can't explain that.
In my testing it's a toy application.
I have a large iCal database with about 6,000 events living on a G5 iMac running OS X 10.5.5. This is a relatively large event collection (though it would not stress Outlook at all) and my hardware is dated -- so I expected a few performance issues.
I did not expect dreadful performance. Minutes to open the Bento (SQLite really) database. A minute to add a single event record. Inability to add a record when viewing a query (filtered list). No drop down for calendar names ...
If you've used any database you'll be surprised to learn you can't emulate a join; you can't find common names in two lists for example.
This is a toy application that will only work with small data sets on a modern machine.
It's awful. Filemaker should be ashamed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Cute, but eh - and no upgrade to 2? Shameful!
Comment: Bento is a cute way to organize your contacts, etc, but it's certainly not powerful. It's certainly not worth $50, though I guess it's better than paying $300 for FileMaker.
I bought Bento about six weeks before they upgraded it to Bento 2, and they're not upgrading me at all. How rude!
Customer Rating:
Summary: The database for people who don't know what a database is for
Comment: I have a major love/hate feeling about this product.
Many users are upset over the release of Bento 2. First of all because Filemaker has left us high and dry. No bug fixes to ver 1, and NO UPGRADE POLICY!!
This database is very limited. There are no relational links, only "representations" of other data. If you intend to use this in a business you are out of luck, It is fine for making a home inventory or planning a party or other "Soccer Mom" stuff.
The interface is so friendly and beautiful you want to use it, but that's on the surface. Underneath the pretty face it is quite shallow.
Version 1 users (like me) had such high hopes for Bento 2 and were shocked and disappointed with this release.
Be aware the product listed here on Amazon is the original version. DO NOT BY THIS! Look for Bento 2 which was released a few weeks ago.
My rating of one star reflects how I feel about the way Filemaker does business. I will NOT be paying another $50 for this poor excuse for an "upgrade". Should they release "Bento Pro" or a contemporary version of Filemaker Pro I would invest. Filemaker 9 looks like it came out with Mac OS9 - needs a serious facelift, or to be honest rebuilt from the ground up. Hey Filemaker there's a new thing called Cocoa. Check it out.
Excuse my rant, back to the review. I absolutely love the way this product integrates with ical, mail and the mac address book. Filemaker claims Bento is compatible with the iphone. That is VERY misleading. Its pretty much a lie.
The table view that now works so much like a (sortable!) spreadsheet is wonderful. Import/export is vastly improved, but reports and printing are weak. I am never able to use my data the way I want. There is always a compromise or work-around involved.
My wish is to record my billable time and expenses on my iphone and drag or paste that information right into an invoice. WHY IN THIS DAY AND AGE IS THAT NOT POSSIBLE?? Oh how I long to be free of MS Money or Quickbooks for my business!
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