I have never played with Carrara Basics, but I recently bought Carrara 5 standard and from the little I've played with it I think it's great.
Looking at the Basics' specs they seem to have left quite a lot of the terrain stuff from Carrara there which you will really enjoy.
The renderer seems to be the one from Carrara minus some bits and bobs, which should produce great renders.
Shame that you only happened across Carrara now... up until June the 1st you could buy the Carrara 5 Std+Poser plugin for $149 at DAZ.
I have vague plans for World Domination