[tirsales]

Perspective: Student of bioinformatics.

Originally Posted by Cavelion

A4 screen or slightly larger (this format has to be decided up front, and no later changing it, this allows for publishing companies to know what to expect layout wise)

I'd say: The total of both screens A4 - otherwise the device would be too clumsy.

No buttons: except for power, reset , volume buttons, mute button and maybe a back to start screen (or library), and maybe a second row of up to five buttons placed along the screen to allow for adaptable (according to the current ebook needs) functions (wilcard buttons)
Touch-screen interface: with fingers and with stylus

Agreed.

Sound output through headphones or speakers (working with two or more, at home with parents, …)

Speakers are not needed IMO - you could attach external speakers (e.g. docking-station with computer-connection, speaker and power supply)

Microphone input
Battery life which can withstand a full school day (10+ hours) of intensive use with sound, note taking, …

Agreed - though school-tables could be equipped with power supplies and LAN (lower interference then WLAN, especially with lots of devices in one room).

Enough disk-space to store lots of books, sound and notes (at this moment I would say around 64 GB to 128 GB)

I'd say this is too much - 1GB stores quite a lot of books or sound, so 16GB of storage is more then enough ... Equip it with one or two Micro-SDHC (or similar) connectors - more flexibility, lower price. High capacity is still expensive.

16 shades of grey and in the near future at least 256 bit of color.

I'd say color is a must - we are not talking about a device that will be released in the next year...

A compartment allowing the pupil to easily put in: stylus, spare stylus, head-phones and microphone

I agree with the stylus - the rest could be fitted into a bag. No need to make the device too big.

Good OCR recognition including handwritten characters (maybe based on movements made during writing)

Difficult!

Good communication between e-book devices and computer

Stuff like this is already solved in software for computer rooms (roughly the same software requirements apply).

An e-book format: which can be reflowable, but at the same time allows for fixed positioning

HTML is fine, provided CSS(3) is fully supported.

The interface should support easy access to the internet (withstanding support for moving images (but who knows what the future of e-ink brings))

The teacher should be able to deactivate internet (or inter-device) access (oh and you forgot to include inter-device access - sometimes pupils will have to copy stuff from one device to the other).