Philips Hue are still the best, but I've heard IKEA Tradfri are great too. The reasons for Hue bulbs being great are that they are extremely reliable, and their colour frequency range is said to be highest (and if you use a third party controller with their lightstrips the saturation/range isn't as wide). The cost is worth it. When my router fucks up it's really nice to have all my motion sensors (Also Hue), quick buttons (SNZB-01P) and lights work together.

A reason for not choosing Hue is they may not be as bright as you hope. As you seem to want white temperatures only and not the full colour spectrum, know that the regular bulbs are 800W and they've fairly recently got 1.6KW bulbs. So look for those if you want.

As for a dongle, I bought mine years ago but the Sonoff range is brilliant - their ZigBee USB dongles are very popular and very reliable. Tge one I own is the 'Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus (CC2652P Coordinator)', also known as 'ZBDongle-P'. Many folk warn against the ZBDongle-E.