list vs. dict

[Beda Kosata]

Hi,
for a piece of code I need to store relatively large amount of records 
(100-1000). Each record will contain few (10-20) pieces of information 
(mostly strings or integers).
For convenience it would be better for me to make this records as dicts, 
so I don't have to remember what data has what position in the list. 
However the most important for me is speed and I suppose that working 
with lists is faster than with dicts. So my question is - how much do 
lists and dicts differ in speed? The most important is the speed of 
comparison ( (dict == dict) vs. (list == list)) and also the speed of 
setting and retrieving data (dict[key] = a vs. list[key] = a) and (a = 
dict[key] vs. a = list[key]).
Does anyone have some experience? How big the difference between the two 
is? I have done some small tests and it seems its not a big difference, 
but I don't have any real-world data.

Thanks in advance

			BEDA