About the color of light:
I have bought bargain brands that were anywhere from bluish to pinkish. Even in the same brand, different wattages have had different phosphors. People generally prefer the pinkish as being more natural. I suppose natural means more like incandescent bulbs. The last bunch, a 6 pack for $10 at Home Depot that I couldn't pass up, are about the color of warm white fluorescents, which in the old-fashioned 2 foot tube variety costs an arm and a leg. The light does look good. I haven't had them in use long enough to know if they will last, but they haven't given me any trouble yet, and at $1.66 a bulb, they don't even have to outlast an incandescent bulb to save money.
I've bought quite a variety of CFs (compact fluorescents) over the years. As they have gotten smaller, I have found more places I can put them. There are actually quite a variety of differing systems. And even within a brand, they have changed obviously over the years.
Light of America:
The first cheap ($9.95 and under) energy saving fluorescents that I recall seeing were by Lights of America. That was long ago in the era of the "energy crisis", as they called it, until it went back to a glut. I still have 2 of those working from that era. These are not the bulbs that usually have the name compact fluorescent. They use a normal circleline fluorescent tube, which has been common back to at least the 1950's. Circlelines are about as long and thick as the big, old tubes of the same wattage, just curved into a circle. As far as I can tell this LOA fixture is not electronic. It has a starter in the plug that attaches to the circleline. And since it buzzes when it ages, it must have a ballast (an inductor). The laminations of the iron core get loose and buzz at the line frequency (and harmonics), just like transformers. Electronic-style fixtures have a converter that drives the bulbs at an ultrasonic frequency far above hearing. They can duplicate the function of a starter electronicly too, although some of them have a starter that you can hear click on.
The LOA fixture treats the tubes so badly that they get flakey at a fraction of the time they would in the old time fixtures. The fixture survives though, and you can replace the circleline tubes, as I have. The actual problem is that the connector plug to the tube corrodes terribly in a year or two, after which the bulb doesn't start up completely. Then the starting and quenching goes on irregularly for hours, and this prematurely wrecks the tube, besides being intolerably annoying. If when you first notice some strangeness, you take the plug off and on a couple of times (which cleans the contacts) the tube lasts a lot longer. The other problem, buzzing badly with age, is more trouble to fix than its worth. But if you're an electronics experimenter screwball like I am, it turns out that the rattling of the ballast against the case is what make the buzz so loud. I took it apart and stretch-wrapped vinyl tape around the works super tightly, and put some soft materal around it. It became virtually silent. I can't hear it at all from a foot away.
But LOA has another type of fixture/bulb, which costs more, that does use electronics, except they do have a starter, and the starter seems to be the culprit that shortens the life of these. This one doesn't buzz. The contacts also get bad, but not as fast. The 30 watt (150 W equivalent), and the extra small 20 watt circleline fixture seem electronic, and the tubes are higher output than normal circlelines. When I have to do something like change a jumper on a motherboard the LOA 30 watter is the kind of light I want. But it is uncomfortable and overwhelming for ordinary use, or even reading. (3 75 W $2 CFs in a triple socket light fixture outclass it ).
All this is by way of explaining that "true" compact fluorescents are different. They are electronic, which used to be expensive, but now is cheap. The tube is tiny, often has convoluted shapes to increase the light giving surface, and has phosphors that can be driven super hard to get the brightness sufficient for the small size. The first one of these I bought (partly because it was "facinating") was a 60 W equivalent Sylvania that I would occasionally see on sale for $24.95 with a $5 rebate, $19.95 AR. That's more like $35 today with inflation. With those kind of prices the bulb has to be on a lot and last a lot of hours to get a payback. The light was a nicer white than the yellowish incandescent bulbs. It never made a sound. It never flickered. It seemed to last forever. But one day, it just would not go on, and that was how it went. Quality sometimes pays for itself.