My friend broke my phone. Should they pay?

Recently I asked my friend to take a photo for me and while doing it he dropped my phone and shattered the screen. I have an iPhone X and didn't buy a warranty on my phone because I've never broken a phone before and the warranty for these things are expensive. (I think for the X it's around $200) Now the cost of repairing the phone screen is 299$ with tax. I told my friend and at first he offered to pay half but then finally agreed to pay in full after I bothered him about it. We're both going to be going into college next year and I know my friend and his family doesn't have the kind of money to pay for something like this and I happened to be in a better situation so in the end after he agreed to pay in full I said he only needs to give me 200. He wrote me out a check for it and I noticed it's coming out of his own account and not his parents. I feel really bad about the whole situation and I'm thinking now should I just not cash the check? I already repaired my phone, so I've already spent the 299 to fix it. What are your thoughts? (To be fair to this friend, he has always been very good about money and paying me back for things, this is the first time he hasn't insisted on paying me back in full)

Do you need the money? Does he? It's a tough call but if you can afford it, just write it off as an accident. It wasn't intentional and you asked him to take the picture.

It's your decision, but your friend gave you the check. You've already spent the money, but if the phone hadn't been broken, you'd still have that money to buy other things.

In this situation, where you told them to take the pic, just an accident, no fooling around that caused it and such, I think splitting it is the best solution. Now if they were fooling around with it, had taken it without permissions and such, playing games so to speak. I would then believe they should cover it all.