I highly recommend hardie board. I was also going to go with the
prefinished color. If you add up the extra cost, you can paint
it for less. Remember you will need to buy color matched caulk
for all the joints. Or just color match some paint and paint the
caulk... I was a DIY and I opted to not use the hardie corner
boards, found them to be very brittle and costly. Used a non
wood composite product. Very happy with the results. Also used
vinyl soffit instead of hardie, just because of the looks…
my 2¢

TP