THE CRUNCH
Before a Surface device reaches customers, it faces a battery of abuse in a windowless, warehouse-like lab on Microsoft's Redmond, Washington campus. There, the team programs robots to press buttons thousands of times, bombards devices with radio waves from giant antennas, and builds contraptions that drop objects from ever greater heights to check the products hold up. The latest machine to run this gauntlet is the Surface Laptop Ultra, which Microsoft positions as its MacBook Pro competitor.
The new laptop is not simply another high-end configuration of the existing Surface Laptop. According to The Verge, which was given access to the testing facility, the Surface Laptop Ultra is a debut platform in its own right, which the publication suggests is why it really needs to hold up under the lab's punishment.