Tea leaf readers are intelligently predicting that the successor to the iPad mini 2 will retain a 7.9 inch display; will have a fingerprint sensor slot; won't have a microSD card and should be priced similar to its predecessor.

French website nowhereelse.fr released in November 2013 what was said to be the first specs of the new tablet it called the iPad Mini 3. It posted an image showing a tablet that looks like an iPad mini but with a Touch ID, which is a fingerprint sensor introduced with the iPhone 5S.

Nowhereelse.fr speculated that the specs of what it called the "iPad Mini 3" would most probably be similar to those found in the Retina iPad Mini: a 1.7 GHz dual-core A7 processor; a 7.9-inch Retina display; a 5 megapixel camera; 1 gigabyte of memory and internal storage between 16 GB and 128 GB.

It believes the "iPad Mini 3" should hit the market in November 2014. The estimated list price for the new iPad was placed at about the same as the Retina iPad Mini.

One of the more cited sources of leaks is Taiwanese Ming-Chi Kuo, who works for Taiwan-based KGI Securities Co. Ltd.  Kuo said the iPad 2 successor, which he refers to as a phablet, will come with an A8 processor; NFC; Touch ID and an 8Mp iSight camera. He believes the new device will be released in the third quarter of 2014.

Other tech sources believe the new iPad will come with the same 16-, 32-, 64- and 128 GB storage options found on the iPad mini 2. Still others say the new machine could be slimmer and lighter than the already light iPad mini 2, making it a candidate for the nickname, "Air."