We used a firestick for a few years which was more than adequate in my experience once you’d set it up initially. Earlier this year I switched over to a cheap Chinese google box by “mycool”, so far this has been working fine too with no issues aside from the cheap remote (I didn’t like the fire stick remote either but it at least felt a little better quality)
I absolutely hate both Amazon and google but my primary concerns were more about the girlfriend acceptance factor as it had to be something that was easy to use as she does not want to put any effort into it. It also needed “Netflix certification” so that the Netflix app would work as she belligerently keeps paying for and using that despite me providing multiple alternatives.
I added a custom launcher to the googleTV one so it literally displays the 6 icons of the things we use and none of the other shit so the experience is easy and streamlined with no adverts or bullshit and this has passed the test with no complaints.
For my sister I got a fire stick up and running as she is, again, very against using anything that requires any kind of effort and she seems happy with that so far.
I’d like to move away from both Amazon and google at least in my own house but not sure how to yet and still get the A OK from the other users, I tried kodi in the past but they both refused to use it due to the interface, which to be fair is fucking dog shit in my experience.
So for now I’ll be sticking to the fire stick and googletv options I have running.
I was looking at the nvidia before getting this current one as everyone recommends it but it is so old now and yet still absurdly expensive that I just didn’t think it was worth it, so if you could buy it and force a new iteration for us all that would be great!
Good luck with whatever you buy, if I had my way we would have a PC hooked up to the TV and do everything via that but I would probably be kicked out just for suggesting something so “absurd” xD