Compare two nvarchar columns with Unicode text in SQL server 2012
<p>In MS SQL Server 2012 I want to compare two columns with data type nvarchar which contain Unicode text.</p>

<p>Following query returns nothing even thought the values are different.</p>

<pre><code>DECLARE @TABLE TABLE(
    A nvarchar(100),
    B nvarchar(100)
);

INSERT INTO @TABLE VALUES (N'A²', N'A2')

SELECT *
FROM @TABLE 
WHERE A &lt;&gt; B;
</code></pre>

<p>I tried with binary collation and it works:</p>

<pre><code>DECLARE @TABLE TABLE(
    A nvarchar(100),
    B nvarchar(100)
);

INSERT INTO @TABLE VALUES (N'A²', N'A2');

SELECT *
FROM @TABLE 
WHERE A COLLATE Latin1_General_BIN = B COLLATE Latin1_General_BIN;
</code></pre>

<p>Is there any other option or can this only be done with collation?</p>