[icebraining]

you'll have to sacrifice battery life for more memory

Or get a bigger battery. Not all laptops are stuck with a non-removable battery that must fit a certain size.

[chillacy]

Then you're sacrificing space. Look, that's a perfectly fine tradeoff, but OP didn't mention what tradeoffs he was willing to make.

For me: I would rather have a smaller and lighter computer since I travel. The battery doesn't have to last more than 5 hours since I'm either out and traveling or at home and plugged in, but if it is plugged in it has to be able to drive pixels on an external monitor.