Research in Motion, maker of the popular Blackberry line of devices, has announced its earnings for Q1 2010, showing a great improvement over the slow year seen by all handset manufacturers in 2009.

The results are mixed with a revenue increase at the lower end of estimates but the 24 percent increase over Q1 2009 results still represents a good start to the year for RIM. Overall revenue came in at $4.24 billion, also an increase over the $4.08 billion the company reported in Q4 2009.

Those numbers translated into 4.9 million new Blackberry subscription accounts during the quarter, bringing the company’s total to 46 million subscribers. The 11.2 million units shipped during the quarter also represent a 43 percent increase over the same quarter last year, offering clear insight into the price drops all manufacturers have been forced to put into place following the worldwide economic recession affecting people since 2008.