Looking at PDFs of newspaper pages on a nice bright monitor is one thing, but it's entirely another experience to hold the newsprint in your hands and navigate through it. And, after all, we design newspapers for readers, not our fellow designers and their flat-screen monitors.

UK designer Manuel Sepulveda sends along these impressions of his experience with a dead-tree copy of today's first Berliner edition of The Guardian.

A reader’s (and designer’s) initial thoughts:

Really impressive: the quality of design is what suprises me the most. The sports section is as tight as one would expect from a monthly magazine. Results tables are carefully weighted and there’s great use of colour photography throughout.

In the main paper, the design tone of the Comments section is perfectly balanced, and editorially there is a good ratio between all the news departments. Unlike designers of the other upmarket press here in the UK, Mark Porter has displayed perfect command of white space — pages don’t look too heavy (or too empty) and the new font makes reading very easy and comfortable.

My only criticism is that they have totally dropped black & white photography; often the most powerful tool in photojournalism is the stark and bold black & white image, but in the enthusiasm to show-off the Guardian presses’ total use of colour this seems to have been forgotten. But the centre page single photo spread was very effective.

Alas, the promised daily Science page failed to materialise, but I suspect this was because Monday has a dedicated Law page.

The (now stapled) G2 section is now more convincingly a daily news magazine, but again the standard of design is more commonly expected in monthlies. I understand that some of the content had been prepared in advance, but if they can maintain this level of design then it will be a great achievement. The TV listings have also been improved, although they haven’t left themselves much room for expansion (other TV channels of interest to Guardian readers are to be launched in the coming months but something will have to go in order to fit their schedules in).

Holding the paper in its Berliner format is definitely more comfortable and it can be read easily, whether standing, sitting at the breakfast table, or at leisure on a bed or armchair.

On a tactile note: it may be my imagination but the paper stock seems softer, almost silky! Another bonus is that the ink rub-off is much reduced.

Despite being a fussy designer there aren’t many nitpicks that I can provide, except perhaps ones of personal taste... if it was me I would drop the horizontal bar at the top of the front page and leave this area "open”.

... and the masthead? Well, it was absolutely right to change it (initially they were going to keep the old Hillman design) but I fear that it will date very quickly and is a bit too restrained. Indeed, of all the paper, for me the weakest element is the front page. I like the comment column and the department boxes at the bottom, but don't like having two small main news items and feel they should lead with just one. And overall it does remind me of trade magazines from the early 90s — it looks like a media or architectural journal from a small desktop publishing firm.

But I’m sure the designers will recognise what works and what doesn’t and fine-tune over the coming days.

Overall... far from being disappointing, the new Guardian has delivered beyond my expectations — congratulations all-round.