If your TV isn’t smart, is smart but slow, or you simply want more app choice than the built-in system offers, an external dongle or TV box connected via HDMI fixes the problem in a few minutes, often for a fraction of the cost of a new TV. The choice isn’t trivial though: each device belongs to a different ecosystem, with specific advantages depending on what you already use, and the technical differences between connectivity and gaming standards deserve a closer look before deciding.
Ecosystem and operating system
The most important criterion is which ecosystem you’re already in, and it’s also the one that matters most for long-term satisfaction — far more than raw technical specs.
If you have an iPhone and use iCloud, Apple TV 4K integrates better than anything else: AirPlay for casting content from your phone with no cables, Handoff to continue watching across devices just by bringing your iPhone close, and a high-quality aluminum Siri Remote with a touch surface for scrolling. If you’re a Prime subscriber and use Alexa at home, a Fire TV Stick is the most natural choice, with Prime Video front and center in the interface and built-in voice control that talks to your whole ecosystem of Echo devices. If you prefer the Google ecosystem, Chromecast with Google TV offers the most coherent interface, with a homepage that aggregates recommendations from all your installed streaming apps instead of isolating them into separate rows. For those with no specific preference, the Android TV/Google TV app catalog overall remains the widest, simply because it’s the most common system among third-party smart TV manufacturers.
Performance and gaming
For simple streaming, even budget devices deliver a smooth experience: the power needed to play Netflix or YouTube in 4K isn’t high, and the difference between an entry-level chip and a high-end one mostly shows up in app launch times, not in image quality itself.
The difference really shows up if you’re interested in cloud gaming — services like GeForce NOW or Amazon Luna, which run games on remote servers instead of the local device. For a concrete sense of the cost: GeForce NOW’s Performance plan (1440p, 60fps, sessions up to 6 hours) starts at around €11 a month, while the Ultimate plan (up to 5K, cloud RTX 5080 GPU, sessions up to 8 hours) runs about €22 a month — with periodic discounts on annual plans that can cut the price by over a third. In these cases, or if you want to connect a controller and local media libraries via USB, a more powerful device like the NVIDIA Shield TV Pro makes a real difference, both in connection stability and interface responsiveness while gaming.
Remote and voice control
All the major devices include a remote with a built-in voice assistant — Siri on Apple TV, Alexa on Fire TV, Google Assistant on Chromecast with Google TV — and dedicated buttons to turn the TV on and adjust its volume, so you don’t need to keep two separate remotes on the coffee table. It’s also worth checking the remote’s connection type: most use Bluetooth (no line of sight needed), but some budget models still rely on plain infrared, which requires pointing directly at the device.
Connectivity
If your Wi-Fi router is far from the TV, check the supported standard. Wi-Fi 6 improves handling of multiple connected devices at once, reducing latency; Wi-Fi 6E (found, for instance, on the Fire TV Stick 4K Max) adds the 6 GHz band, which offers 1,200 MHz of additional spectrum — more than the combined 2.4 and 5 GHz bands — and is still lightly used by other home devices. In practice, for 4K HDR streaming this translates into higher bitrates, less visible compression and fewer sudden stutters, especially in a household where several people are streaming, video-calling or gaming online at the same time. The benefit is more noticeable the faster your fiber connection is: on 1-2.5 Gbps FTTH lines the gain over old Wi-Fi 5 is significant. That said, as frequency goes up, the signal’s ability to pass through walls and obstacles drops slightly: if the dongle sits very far from the router, the 5 GHz band can sometimes remain more stable than 6 GHz.
If you prefer a wired connection for maximum stability, know that only a few devices offer it natively — the NVIDIA Shield TV Pro has a built-in Gigabit Ethernet port, while most others require a separate USB-to-Ethernet adapter (not included in the box).
Storage and memory
For streaming alone, 8-16 GB of internal storage is more than enough: content stays streamed rather than downloaded locally, so the space is only needed for installed apps, not for the movies or shows you watch. The exception is anyone wanting to also use the device to play local media files (downloaded movies, photo collections) from a USB stick or external drive: in that case the NVIDIA Shield TV Pro, with its two USB 3.0 ports and expandable storage, remains the only sensible choice in this category.
Budget
Prices range from under €70 for a budget dongle like the Xiaomi TV Stick 4K to over €200 for an Apple TV 4K or NVIDIA Shield TV Pro. For general streaming use — Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, YouTube — even the cheapest option delivers a fully satisfying experience: the higher price only pays off if you actually use the high-end-specific features (gaming, Apple ecosystem, expandable storage, Wi-Fi 6E).
Conclusion
There’s no single best device: the right choice depends more on the ecosystem you’re already in than on technical specs. Those in the Apple ecosystem should pick the Apple TV 4K, Amazon users a Fire TV Stick, Google fans a Chromecast with Google TV, and those wanting cloud gaming too — along with the perks of wired connectivity and expandable storage — an NVIDIA Shield TV Pro. On the tightest budget, a Xiaomi TV Stick 4K covers basic streaming needs without giving up modern Wi-Fi and full HDR.