A drop chamber is designed to validate Microsoft’s simulation data against the reality of dropping a device on concrete flooring. The drop chamber was key to developing Microsoft’s removable battery packs on its latest Surface devices, for example, to ensure any drops wouldn’t puncture the batteries.

Microsoft has new Surface devices, and they cheaper and smaller than ever. How do the Surface Laptop 13-inch and Surface Pro 12-inch compare to the MacBook Air and iPad Pro?

Both new Surface devices carry the “Copilot+ PC” designation Microsoft gives to high-end computers with a so-called neural processing unit. It handles things like real-time translation in video calls or image generation, freeing up the CPU — in this case, Qualcomm Inc.’s Snapdragon X Plus — for other tasks.