Today, Microsoft announced the new Surface Studio, basically an iMac that runs Windows, has a touchscreen, and can bend over backwards. And it's that last trick that's perhaps the most impressive. After years of mechanical work on the Surface tablet's ultra-thin keyboards, the Surface Book's folding hinge and detachable screen, Microsoft has gotten down and dirty with springs and levers, things that twist and bend. The Surface Studio is no different. What a lovely screen to be moving.

The Surface Studio's screen is actually pretty hefty at around 13 pounds, but the mechanics behind how it's attached to the base allow it to feel weightless. Essentially, the bar that attaches the screen to its base horizontally hides a pair of torsion springs, which twist and turn to balance out the pitching of the screen as you change its angle. Meanwhile, there are four compression springs hidden in the base, two on each side. These expand and contract to counteract the weight of the screen as you push it up and down.

Of course it is not just so easy as throwing some springs your find lying around into this frame and hoping for the best. Each of these springs is specifically tuned to balance out the weight of the screen specifically. To match its 13 pounds precisely so that it feels like it is weightless. Too little stiffness and it might sink under its own weight. Too much and the screen would pop out a like a jack in the box.

Fortunately it seems like they've gotten the balance just right. When I lifted the a disembodied screen Microsoft had on display for comparison, its weight was surprising considering how thin it feels. But on the Surface Studio it does indeed feel weightless. I could raise or lower the screen with my pinky and basically no effort. There's no way to lock the screen in place while it's in between positions, so that means that touching an upright screen might move it back a little if you're too forceful, but the optimal angle for drafting is the slight angle that you get if you push it all the way to the bottom of its range, where there's nowhere else to go.

The hinges that connect the torsion springs in the back of the screen with the compression springs in the Studio's base.

In addition to making the balance of the springs and the screen just right, Microsoft says it also devoted a ton of engineering time to testing reliability and insuring that these springs stay as tight as they need to be for years and years and years. Right now, it's impossible to tell if they got it right, but they better have; these PCs—what with their 4K displays, internal graphics, and top-of-the-line Intel processors—are damn pricey. In the range of $3,000 if you really trick it out. Hopefully those springs will last at least as long as the guts inside.

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