title: utf8 and utf8_general_ci
body: <p>I have problem inserting rows to my DB.
  When a row contains characters like: 'è', 'ò', 'ò', '€', '²', '³' .... etc ... it returns an error like this (charset set to <em>utf8</em>):</p>
  
  <pre><code>Incorrect string value: '\xE8 pass...' for column 'descrizione' at row 1 - INSERT INTO materiali.listino (codice,costruttore,descrizione,famiglia) VALUES ('E 251-230','Abb','Relè passo passo','Relè');
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But, if I set the charset to <em>latin1</em> or *utf8_general_ci* it works fine, and no errors are found.</p>
  
  <p>Can somebody explain me why does this happens? I always thought that <em>utf8</em> was "larger" than <em>latin1</em></p>
  
  <p>EDIT: I also tried to use mysql_real_escape_string, but the error was always the same!!!!</p>