some of the baselevel models don't support access point mode so figure out which devices fit your purposes and check in their spec sheet if they support AP mode.
Some have a hardware switch on the side that allows you to switch from AP to extender mode and some do it from within the firmware. Like I said, filter the extenders by features that you need and then look at the specs list when you pull them up. It should say if they act as ap's or not.
Yes, I mean a Wi-Fi extension with the behavioral option as an access point.
In typical terminology, a WiFi Extender does use a WiFi connection) e.g. to the router while acting as a wireless access point resp an Ethernet bridge for the LAN ports. To add some more confusion, Netgear has changed the functionality on the newer wireless extenders to become Mesh Extenders. The difference to a classic extender is that there is no MAC translation, and the Mesh extender access point can be configured to he same wireless network name like the primary router - this does allow seamless roaming between the extender AP and the router AP.
A Wifi Access point on the other hand is typically connected to a router LAN by a network cable, or to a LAN switch with an uplink to the router.
