The delta in power between Apple TVs and most other streaming boxes/dongles is absurd. Even the now ancient 2017 Apple TV 4K has the muscle to brute force decode a lot of video that isn’t natively hardware accelerated, meanwhile there’s piles of brand new boxes/dongles that are hopelessly weak and don’t have a prayer of being able to handle the same files. The gap is more like a canyon if comparing against the current Apple TV model, and the upcoming refresh is probably going to make it basically a Mac Nano in terms of horsepower.
Yes they’re more pricey, but you’re getting a lot more hardware and better longevity for that money.
