Good riddance. I tried a "Chromecast with Google TV" because it was so cheap, and seemed to support everything. It was easily the worst experience I've had with a set-top-box:
1. Sometimes it took 2-3 minutes to wakeup from the sleep state.
2. The remote is so curved on the bottom (literally a semi-circle) that I struggled to pick it up and the only ways to reliably pick it up successfully resulted in inadvertent button presses
3. The remote is overly minimalist. 8 buttons total. Missing buttons include a play/pause button, which is easily the most vital button for a device dedicated to playing media. Sometimes the center button acts as play pause but other times not. It has taken me 30s to pause what I'm watching when I'm already holding the remote (add in #2 and it can take me over a minute to pause)
4. Sometimes media playback just crashes and I need to start over.
5. Tons of ads. I was expecting this from a Google product, but thought I'd mention it anyways
TL;DR: If you want a STB, just pay the extra $20 for a Roku, everything about it works absurdly better. If the Roku cost $100 more, I'd still recommend it for anyone not on the most extreme of budgets.
We have 5 Chromecasts with Android Tv around the house, and we don't have any of the problems you describe - no 2-3 minute wake-up, it's pretty much instant on all of them. No ads, we use "apps only mode". The remote is just fine, your hands may be the problem. Media playback never crashes.
That said, I'm not paying $100 for the same experience I recently paid $30 for. I'm going to test on the Onn 4k streaming device for $20.
1. Sometimes it took 2-3 minutes to wakeup from the sleep state.
2. The remote is so curved on the bottom (literally a semi-circle) that I struggled to pick it up and the only ways to reliably pick it up successfully resulted in inadvertent button presses
3. The remote is overly minimalist. 8 buttons total. Missing buttons include a play/pause button, which is easily the most vital button for a device dedicated to playing media. Sometimes the center button acts as play pause but other times not. It has taken me 30s to pause what I'm watching when I'm already holding the remote (add in #2 and it can take me over a minute to pause)
4. Sometimes media playback just crashes and I need to start over.
5. Tons of ads. I was expecting this from a Google product, but thought I'd mention it anyways
TL;DR: If you want a STB, just pay the extra $20 for a Roku, everything about it works absurdly better. If the Roku cost $100 more, I'd still recommend it for anyone not on the most extreme of budgets.