Savings account help

[dynacraze]

I want to put 5K into a savings account and not into a CD because i dont want money tied up in case of emergency. A lot of people said go with INGDirect or HSBC Direct online since each gives 4.5 and 5.05 percent respectively. My quesiton is I always do those calculations with the months and percent using those CD calculators. Say, deposit 5000 dollars into a CD for 1 year at 5 percent interest would get me 250 dollars per year.

My question is does that work the same way for a savings account? If i put 5000 into INGDirect and basically my money will be around 4000-5000 dollars a year in there and 4.5 percent APY, would i generate about 200 dollars or so? I am getting confused because why would a CD pay basically just A BIT more than a savings account over a year since it has the restriction of not taking any money out during the time period or you will be penalized.

Or is it that INGDirect offers up to 4.5 percent if you deposit something like 50K and offers like 2 percent if you put only 5K. The reason is that my current savings back gives me 0.025 percent interest which is why I am really confused now.

Thanks.