I've indeed used SolidWorks. We can get the student license for 4 euros at the university, but normally a student version costs 120 euros.
As for a SolidWorks license which allows you to use the software for production purposes as a company (and has the latest updates, the student version is the previous year's version) I've heard you'll pay up to as much as 6000 euros!
Whatever the case is, SolidWorks is not basic at all, but it does work very well - Once you get to understand the 'SolidWorks-logics:' The thing is, it's not extremely intuitive. It's hard to make such a complicated piece of software with this much capabilities without making things impossible to follow for a stranger to SolidWorks.
However, I think they do have nice tutorials incorporated in the software: Once you've done one of the tutorials, the rest will go easier, and once you get a feeling for using the basic steps in making a model you can start playing around and do all sorts of crazy stuff!
There are plenty of cheap or free alternatives. I haven't used them as I already have this software (and there is nothing the free CAD packages can do what SolidWorks can't other than save you money - but for me not a lot either). I've seen some very impressive work in Google SketchUp, so it might be worth having a look at, and I've worked in
Anim8or when I was younger - I recalled it was fun and that people had made amazing stuff in it, but whether it is compatible with CAM or even practical when you need measure and remeasure a lot I don't know.