I asked on about 4 different forums, at the same time, gone for the canon a40, memory is a lot cheaper.
I did however go to currys, and tried them both out, and they both where very good, the sony was slightly akward, but it did have a more clear LCD screen
Well, you have done the right thing and physically compared the two. Both are fine cameras and whatever you choose will do you proud.... just as long as you use it! Sony tends to have it's own take on human interfaces on all its products, but once learnt, are intuitive [enough].
Me, I have my 128Mb Compact Flash card [£30, whoohoo! ] and no camera as yet.