A novel multi-surface concentrating trough solar air collector was designed in this paper. The performance tests of the system were carried out under factual weather conditions for three receivers (three air flow channels). Under different air flow rate and similar solar irradiance, the collecting temperature, efficiency and the time constant of the system were measured. The variation curves of the experimental results with local time were given. The characteristics of the solar air collector with different flow channels were compared, and the variation of the efficiency with unitary temperature differences were presented also. As the results, the highest temperature of the collector with circular glass tube channel can be over 140℃. When collecting temperature is about 100℃, the collecting efficiency can be over 45%. With other flow channel receivers, the system also has the characteristics of big air flow rates and high efficiency and can satisfy the requirements of space heating and drying.