I posted a "ISO" on the local "buy nothing" Facebook group, and someone offered up his (very lightly) used "Fire TV Stick with Alexa". It's the 2019 1080p 802.11ac version. He did ask for a 6-pack of Budwiser, though, for trade.
First off...the UI kinda sucks, and it's *clearly* trying to shove all things Amazon down your throat, front and center, and every chance it gets.
It's not the snappiest thing I've ever used. The remote feels super cheap, and squeaks every time you press a mushy button.
I bought one of these sleeves for it, so it feels a *little* nicer, but the buttons are so low-profile they are now sort of recessed below the surface of this skin.
I'm so thankful, though, that this remote (due to eArc, as I think someone here mentioned to me) is able to turn on the TV and change its volume. A bummer that I can't get to the rest of the TV's menus, like picture presets or the sleep timer, but I guess this'll do.
One bummer is that it's pretty limited on it's onboard memory, so I couldn't install all of the apps I wanted. I'm two short. The up side is that I can finally have access to many apps that were never released for this 2015 Samsung TV (HBO, Disney+, Pluto (well, it had it but then it was removed after an update a couple of years ago), and even some that never got a Vizio app (RiffTrax and MST3K, primarily), which is the TV in the bedroom, from 2018.
While the actual responsiveness of the system isn't
that much better that the TV's, there's one HUGE improvement: boot time. Similar to an SSD upgrade to an old laptop, the day to day use isn't much different. With the TV's system, though, when you didn't have it set to a specific "source", would auto-revert back to OTA when you would turn it on. Which was always WAY louder than any of the apps, so you'd get blasted by loudness. But because the TV was still "booting", the volume button wouldn't have an immediate effect. So you'd have to hit the "mute" button, which still wouldn't execute until about 2-3 full seconds later, making you question if you pressed it (and if you tried again, it would immediately un-mute once it did mute from your first press). Then, you'd have to wait a bit for the "Smart Hub" menu to fully load and stop stuttering if you tried to more the highlight for the various apps and settings. But if you tried to open an app too soon, it may say you're not signed in yet. Then, when you DO get into an app, if you didn't let it "rest" for a good several minutes, it'd likely crash at least once before you ever got a video loaded.
With this device, the TV boots into "HDMI 1", and the unit boots to its (silent) home screen, and UI is up-and-running full speed in about 4-5 seconds. So far, I've used it every single day for at least a week, and haven't had a single crash.
I'm not sure why we let ourselves live with those frustrations so long. I guess I just assumed the streaming stick experience would suck, but I suppose it's similar to how a lot of people feel about Apple CarPlay and Android Auto (though, I prefer using my Mazda's own system vs Android Auto, however I'd LOVE to be able to have AA in my girlfriend's VW, as that system SUUUUUUUUUUUCKS.
TL;DR: remote's shitty, Amazon's interface is very "amazon-y", too little memory, and only 1080p, but the upgrade to my 2015 TV was worth the 6-pack of Budwiser I paid for it, and more.