Study the POH on the ground, then one hour in the air with an instructor and a few hours solo or with another experienced pilot in non-taxing conditions and you should be fine.
I had I guess about 80 hours on Pipers when I first flew a Cessna 172. I found it comparably heavy on the controls (even though we were nowhere near MTOW), the view outside was dreadful (I'm 1.86 so my head was in the wing root) but the landing was easy. Somehow easier than the Piper - without prior practice I managed to make three near-perfect landings into a 15x700m grass strip with a 15 knot crosswind 90 degrees to the runway.
The other thing that I prefer in the Piper is manual flaps. You know the pitch change is there when you pull the lever, whereas with electric flaps the pitch change happens a few seconds after you hit the switch.
Oh, and of course the Piper, with its low wings also has low fuel tanks. So in addition to the engine driven pump there's an electric backup pump which has to be on for take-off and landing, and when you switch tanks (no "both" setting on the fuel selector).
Other than that, the difference is marginal. One door instead of two. No way to open the windows in-flight. View downwards, particularly from the rear seats, is worse. Cruise speeds, fuel consumption and the V speeds are all roughly comparable.