> the hard edge at the front is a killer on my wrists

I'm not sure it's recommended to be resting your wrists on the laptop at all. You're going to injure yourself like that. Every recommendation I've ever seen is to have your wrists in the air so that they're straight and level.

That's an issue I have with laptops in general, I think. To have the screen in a place where you can look at it comfortably, you need your hands in a place that is uncomfortable for them. And then vice-versa.

I already have issues with repetitive stress pain when I use a laptop too long. I mainly try to avoid the laptop when at all possible and just use my 8+ year old desktop instead for all work things.

As a plus, it has drastically cut down on the amount of "bonus" work I do at home in the evenings. When the choice is getting a little more work done vs not having tendons that hurt to move for the next 3 days, I'll take the lack of pain every time :)

For 8+ hours a day? Sounds impossible to me...

Maybe this is where the recommended regular breaks come in? ;)

My physio told me it was incredibly unhealthy to sit in the same position for more than 40 minutes at a time. (His exact words were "I'd tell you to move every 20 minutes but I know what you programmers are like")

As much as I dislike using my Macbook Pro (2015 vintage), it has easily the best on lap and typing experiencing of any laptop I've had or used in the last 10 years. It has that hard edge but for whatever reason I don't find it an issue.

Ergonomically speaking, you should not be resting your wrists down when typing or using the touchpad. Your wrists and palms are supposed to be aligned and hovering over the keyboard.

The main thing I've always heard is that you're supposed to avoid "negative" angles on your wrist when typing. So I have a very thin, flat keyboard that I normally use.

Laptops are a similar concept, but they are raised up enough that my normal typing posture doesn't work that well. With my Inspiron that I have at home, the base of the laptop is thin enough and angled decently that it works out fairly well.

The Thinkpad has a base that is almost an inch thick, and my hand is just the perfect size that the hard edge I referenced is exactly where my wrist bends, which is I think what makes things so uncomfortable when using it.

It's not just negative angles but any deviation at all, really. Your wrists are not supposed to be sitting at a static angle all day long, and having physical pressure from the desk/laptop on the underlying nerves and ligaments is a know factor favoring RSI symptoms.

TIL I've been doing it wrong for thirty years.

Only being slightly facetious. What's going to happen to me if I don't mend my ways?

Honestly? RSI is always a risk. People don't have the same propensity to experiencing it though. I'm late 20s and it already started destroying my wrists, fixing my positioning relieved (most of) the pain.

I just can't type like that. I'm a very lazy typist.

I used to say that too until I started experiencing RSI. I eliminated 95% of the pain just by fixing my typing ergonomics. YMMV ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've got a T480 and my hands rest in front of the edge.