Laughing at all of those who say it's impossible to do this, or that the iPad mini isn't a "real" phone. With a data package and various VOIP options, it certainly is possible. You can have a real phone number with your local area code (or even port your current number over in many cases).
It's not a phone you want to hold up to your head to speak into, but it certainly is a very portable speaker phone. Or can be used with earbuds which include a mic. Or even with a bluetooth headset.
For those who don't want to walk around with a headset on their head, you could use something like this in your shirt pocket:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-HM5000-Type-Bluetooth-Headset/dp/B007L429MK
And yes, you could do the same thing with an iPhone....ditch the voice and text plan and just use data for VOIP. Or get the $30 a month T-mobile plan with 100 minutes voice, and Unlimited Texts and 5GB high speed data. There are lots of ways to do this without spending a fortune.
Right now you need to be a bit creative and savvy to get the optimum setup. People can't believe I spend just $30 a month for phone and data which I can tether to my iPad, but as soon as I start explaining how I do it, their eyes just glaze over! But it really isn't that difficult to figure out. My guess is eventually this will be the way mobile phone service works....the service will be just a data plan and the handset will be configured to use data for voice, text, and web, indistinguishable from how current cell phones work....but instead of buying a package of minutes, texts, and GB, there will just be different sized data packages. Would love a carrier to just sell a pay for what you use plan.
I think T-mobile may have something along these lines in the works. They hinted that their upcoming offering will not be traditional service plans. Also they already have VOIP apps for other phones that route calls over wi-fi when available. Wouldn't be at all surprised to see these as features of their upcoming phone plans. Sort of what Republic Wireless (
http://www.republicwireless.com ) is doing with android handsets, but with iOS devices.