In this study the seasonal performance of a residential air conditioning system having either a fin-and-tube condenser or a microchannel condenser is experimentally investigated. A commercially available 7 kW capacity residential air conditioning system having a fin-and-tube condenser served as the base system. The test results show that the system with a microchannel heat exchanger has a reduced refrigerant charge amount of 10%, the coefficient of performance is increased by 6% to 10%, and the SEER is increased by 7% as compared with those of the base system. Moreover, the condensing pressure of the system is decreased by 100 kPa and the pressure drop across the condenser is decreased by 84%. The microchannel heat exchanger enhances the SEER of the residential air conditioning system by providing better heat transfers at reduced pressure drops.