The flow maldistribution and the effect of different inlet configuration on the flow distribution in platefin heat exchangers were studied experimentally. It is found that the flow maldistribution is serious because of the defects of inlet configurations, while the inlet configuration and Reynolds number are the main factors affecting the flow distribution. The improved inlet configurations, which are the header with a two-stage distributing configuration and the guide vane with a fluid complementary cavity were proposed and tested in this paper. The experimental results show that the improved inlet configurations can effectively improve the performance of flow distribution in heat exchangers.