The Miles Electric, also called the PAD, is a multifunctional electronic handheld device created by Miles "Tails" Prower. Possessing many functions valuable to the two-tailed fox, the Miles Electric serves as Tails and his allies' most frequently used gadget and tool.
The Miles Electric's appearance is that of a wide yellow rectangle, with two cyan-glowing antennas on top, a touchscreen in the middle and some directional pads beside the screen. In Sonic Unleashed, the Miles Electric had two handles on each side and a spiraling wire between the antennas while from Sonic Colors and onward, it only has one handle on the left side and lacks the spiraling wire.
The Miles Electric functions are basically the same as a highly advanced, multifunctional, hand-held computer. As such, the Miles Electric is capable of many operations, such as displaying video recordings, real-time audio and video communication with other people, or operating as a radar for detection of at least airborne enemies. It is also capable of other simpler standard computer functions, such as file handling, menu operations, window operations and has even a help section. Most prominently, however, the Miles Electric can interface its functions with those of the Tornado-1 by inserting it into the front of the biplane's cockpit, essentially making it a control panel for the Tornado-1.
In Sonic Colors, Tails reconfigured the Miles Electric into an alien translator, allowing the device to translate the Wisps' foreign tongue into an understandable language. However, it could only transcribe the Wisps' words into binary code, meaning only Tails could understand the product of the Miles Electric's translation (on the Wii version of the game, it also made a few comical mistranslations due to some bugs, which Tails eventually managed to fix near the end of the game).
The Miles Electric was first seen in Sonic Unleashed. Whenever Tails appeared in the game's hub worlds, he could be seen fiddling with the Miles Electric. When Sonic and Chip had restored the first continent, Tails used the Miles Electric to show Sonic and Chip an image of the entire planet when Mazuri's continent was rejoining the planet.
The device is seen again in Sonic Colors, as Tails attempts to create a translation module so that he and Sonic could understand the language of the Wisps. In the Wii version, it initially makes several comical translations errors and is not perfected until the end of the game, whereas in the Nintendo DS version, the translator works perfectly throughout the entire game. The device itself seems to have been given some slight aesthetic changes as well, with only one black handle on the left and its corners are slightly round in shape.
During the events of Sonic Lost World, Sonic and Tails are seen having one Miles Electric, while Amy and Knuckles have another Miles Electric to contact them from Earth. When Sonic manages to find out the capsule that Eggman has been carrying at the beginning of the story, Amy contacts him and asks him to save rest of animals.
Throughout the game, Tails is seen carrying and analyzing Zeti powers with Miles Electric before being kidnapped by Deadly Six. Amy also contacts to Sonic with Miles Electric two times, telling about the impact on Earth. When Sonic tries to contact them third time in Lava Mountain, he is unable to get any signal on Amy and Knuckles, believing to have lost them. The Miles Electric is also seen at the bottom right of the loading screen after completing the Zone.
Since its introduction in Sonic Unleashed, the Miles Electric has quickly become Tails' signature item, much like Amy Rose's Piko Piko Hammer.
It should be noted that the Miles Electric has a striking resemblance to the GamePad on the Wii U, a system that would come out four years after Sonic Unleashed was released.
An accessory of the Sonic Colors Miles Electric was made by Jazwares along with a Tails action figure.
When Yacker leaves at the end of Sonic Colors, it is possible to get a good look at the Miles Electric. Tails claimed that the translator was in binary, but it was actually hexadecimal (ASCII code). This may be a result of Tails finally perfecting it, but this was never explained.
Additionally, the first two lines of hex translate exactly to what Yacker was saying. But the bottom display decoded reads, "If you can read this, you are a geek".
The device was also used for some of the loading screens in the PS3/Xbox 360 version of Sonic Unleashed, which is shown to give out tips, controls for Sonic (both regular and Werehog forms) and others, maps of the Hub Worlds, and sometimes boot up when going to different parts of a Hub World and after ending some stages.
Despite his real first name 'Miles' rarely being used in the series, Tails named this device for his actual name.
The AVA seen in the Sonic Boom franchise is used for the same purpose as the Miles Electric.