Miles Electric

The Miles Electric 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's most frequently used gadget and tool.

Appearance
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 besides 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.

Functions
The Miles Electric basically operates as a highly advanced, multifunctional, hand-held computer. As such, the Miles Electric is capable of many functions, such as displaying video recordings, operating as a radar for detection of at least airborne enemies, and 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 it also made a few mistranslations due to some bugs, which Tails eventually managed to get fixed near the end of the game).

Sonic Unleashed
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 to the Miles Electric to show Sonic and Chip an image of the entire planet when Mazuri's continent was rejoining the planet.

Sonic Colors
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 DS version, the translator works perfectly throughout the entire game. The device itself seems to have been given some slight aesthetic changes as well.

Sonic Generations
In the console version of Sonic Generations, the Miles Electric can be seen on extra missions on Tails' Tornado-1.

Archie Comics
The Miles Electric made a brief appearance in Mega Man #27 during the Archie Comics' crossover event Sonic & Mega Man: Worlds Collide, as one the devices Tails possessed in the new timeline of Mobius Prime, created by the Genesis Wave. Here, Tails used it to hack the controls to the teleporter to the Wily Egg to give himself, Sonic, Mega Man and Rush direct access to the flying fortress, and succeeded. (WC #10)

Trivia

 * 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 read "If you can read this, you are a geek".
 * The device was also used for some of the loading screens in Sonic Unleashed.
 * Despite disliking his real first name 'Miles', Tails ironically used his actual name in naming this device.
 * Since its introduction in Sonic Unleashed, the Miles Electric has quickly become Tails' signature item, much like Amy Rose's Piko Piko Hammer.