Ivanka Trump uses an ancient Dell laptop — here's what we know about it

On May 21, senior advisor to the president Ivanka Trump posted a few glamour shots of herself on Instagram. What made these ones different from, say, her posing with a can of beans, was that this had her laptop, perched on books on the living room table of her $5.5 million Washington home.

“The future of work that the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board has long been discussing is no longer on the horizon — it is here and now,” she wrote.

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What kind of laptop is this, you ask? According to a representative from Dell, it appears to be a Dell Latitude E7000 from roughly 2013 or 2015. 

Here’s what the laptop can be used for: business. That’s pretty much it. It has a Trusted Platform Module, a microcontroller that enhances privacy by protecting data through encryption. While it's a useful feature for business users, it's not needed for most consumers.

What about the other security features, you ask? We can’t confirm that this is her work PC (though, it seems like it), but if it is, here’s the vintage specs: It has Windows 10 and a long battery life of roughly 15 hours.

Unsurprisingly, this archaic-looking thing obviously doesn’t have a touch screen and it's fairly heavy, weighing roughly 3.4 pounds despite being considered an ultraportable. And though it lacks modern-day specs, this was once considered a “top of the line” business laptop as part of a three-tier series, the Latitude notebooks 3000 (low-range), 5000 (mid-range) and 7000 (top of the line).

It doesn’t have a good privacy screen, having poor viewing angles, and the speakers suck, being thin sounding and not very loud (not the ideal laptop to Zoom on). And it’s far from what Laptop Mag recommended at the time as the best business laptop.

This puppy goes for roughly $399 online today (though you absolutely should not buy it - Dell has better options), although when it was released in 2013, it sold for around $1,000. While some say this laptop could be “decades-old,” it’s known for its “decent design but not too flashy” appearance. 

Could it just be a government-issued laptop for work calls? Perhaps, as this paparazzi photo from 2018 suggests, in which Ivanka Trump is holding two laptops — what looks like the black Dell, alongside a silver MacBook, tucked under her arm. That same laptop (or a similar one) can be spotted under her arm in pap photos dating back to 2016.

“All I know of that laptop is that it’s rugged and old, and she is propping it with books,” says Caroline Heldman, critical theory and social justice professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles. “My guess is that it's a prop that she doesn’t use very often. And the book props are to make sure the Zoom call does not show multiple chins, so vanity?”

The laptop’s details have come under scrutiny. “[it] seems camera is black tapped for security,” writes one Twitter user, while another notices: “Ivanka Trump works from home with a decades-old ethernet laptop.”

Another person gives some advice: “Get a Mac.” 

What does Ivanka Trump use it for?

 That brings us to the next question: What does Ivanka Trump actually use it for?

One Twitter user points out the ongoing narrative the first daughter seems to be upkeeping, “Look! I am sitting at a computer, all dressed up looking ah-mazing, right daddy? I'm governmenting!  Make sure you get pics of me, me, me!” they wrote.

While Trump has come under fire for hawking beans, and a heavily mocked job assistance program called Find Something New, this photo shows her posing, smiling while on a Zoom call with the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board.

She wasn’t only criticized for her fake work scenario in this laptop photo-op, but the books she used to prop them up on. Someone pointed out she needs a laptop stand, suggesting the Ergostand III.

Especially with the recent news of Mary Trump’s tell-all book that claims the first daughter does “nothing” in the White House, it seems to be that posing with laptops – like this one here, an HP, when she toured tours a Boy's and Girl's Club in Washington last September – seems to be a trend to depict the working woman, something she has written a book about.

And in the background of her laptop photo-op, Trump was criticized for having photos of her herself, during her time as White House senior advisor, including that time she visited NASA, on view. 

On that note, one Twitter user said she has “a vault of her own stock images,” which could be true.