We study the nature of the instability of the homogeneous steady states of the subcritical real Ginzburg-Landau equation in the presence of group velocity. The shift of the absolute instability threshold of the trivial steady state, induced by the destabilizing cubic nonlinearities, is confirmed by the numerical analysis of the evolution of its perturbations. It is also shown that the dynamics of these perturbations is such that finite size effects may suppress the transition from convective to absolute instability. Finally, we analyze the instability of the subcritical middle branch of steady states, and show, analytically and numerically, that this branch may be convectively unstable for sufficiently high values of the group velocity.