Sparrow or Mail.app on Snow Leopard

I have heard great things about Sparrow. Since Google has botched up GMail, I'm thinking of using either Mail.app or Sparrow. Since I will actually have to pay for Sparrow, I was wondering if someone could recommend one over the other in terms of size etc so I can figure out whether or not to buy Sparrow. Other recommended options would also be very appreciated (Thunderbird, maybe?).

I run Mac OS X 10.6.8 and have never used either Mail or Sparrow til yesterday when I started up Mail for the first time ever.
Also, sorry if this thread was started elsewhere, but I couldn't find it when I did a google search.

I would just use the Mail application with GMail. They work nicely together. The Google Mail site has some good instructions for integrating the Mail app with GMail. Besides, if you have mobile devices GMail offers free IMAP which many providers make you pay for. As for Sparrow, we have several folks who are using it and say they like it. It's up to you.