High thermal performances have been needed for the use of solar air collectors and compact heat exchangers. The thermal performance improvements have prompted us to lead this comparative study on the solar air heaters with and without selective absorbers. Rectangular fins are soldered staggered on the collector＇s back. The interstices are let between two consecutive fins located in the same rows. The fluid flow undergoes constrictions followed one after the other by expansions. A turbulent fluid flow is developed, that permits the improvement of the thermal heat transfer of these collectors in comparison to the flat-plate. For the same fin configurations, the thermal heat transfer coefficient has been evaluated with selective or nonselective absorber-plate. The results obtained with the fin configurations with black-painted absorber (non-selective absorber), are compared with those of the fin configuration with coppersun absorber-plate (selective absorber). The aim of this study is to show that the nature of the absorber-plate (selective or nonselective) has no important effect on the thermal performances of the fanned system collector. Only a trivial increase is noted on behalf of the selective absorber collector.